BUSINESS BEFORE QUESTIONS

Manchester City Council Bill [ Lords] and Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [ Lords]

Motion made, and Question (15 January) again proposed,
	That the promoters of the Manchester City Council Bill [ Lords] and Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [ Lords], which were originally introduced in the House of Lords in Session 2006-07 on 21 January 2007, may have leave to proceed with the Bills in the current Session according to the provisions of Standing Order 188B (Revival of bills).

Hon. Members: Object.
	 The debate stood adjourned; to be resumed on Thursday 29 January.

Canterbury City Council Bill, Leeds City Council Bill, Nottingham City Council Bill and Reading Borough Council Bill

Motion made, and Question (15 January) again proposed,
	That the promoters of the Canterbury City Council Bill, Leeds City Council Bill, Nottingham City Council Bill and Reading Borough Council Bill, which were originally introduced in this House in Session 2007-08 on 22 January 2008, may have leave to proceed with the Bills in the current Session according to the provisions of Standing Order 188B (Revival of bills).

Hon. Members: Object.
	 The debate stood adjourned; to be resumed on Thursday 29 January.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

The Secretary of State was asked—

Energy Act 2008

Jim Devine: What recent discussions he has had on the implementation of the provisions of the Energy Act 2008; and if he will make a statement.

Edward Miliband: Key policies enabled by the Act, including the introduction of the banding of the renewables obligation and the roll-out of smart meters to medium-sized businesses, will be in force by April 2009. Later this year, we will consult on the feed-in tariff scheme for small-scale renewables scheduled to be introduced in 2010, and confirm details of our plans announced last year for the roll-out of smart meters to domestic users by 2020.

Jim Devine: I thank my right hon. Friend for that response. Although it would be churlish not to welcome today's announcement from British Gas of a 10 per cent. cut in pricing, does my right hon. Friend have something to say about those individuals—especially pensioners—who are making additional payments because they have prepayment meters?

Edward Miliband: My hon. Friend asks about an important issue. It is right to welcome the price fall in wholesale gas and this morning's announcement of the reduction in British Gas prices, which will commence next month. We want price reductions that go as far as possible, as fast as possible from British Gas and other energy companies because wholesale gas prices have fallen.
	On prepayment meters, it is welcome that Ofgem has proposed changes in the law and in licence conditions for the energy companies. That means not only eliminating some of the problems of the past few months, but, in future, stopping the sort of practices that offend us all and discriminate unduly against the poorest people in our society.

Philip Hollobone: Will the Secretary of State have a close look at the innovative scheme in the borough of Kettering, whereby Kettering borough council and E.on got together? In return for the installation of smart meters, E.on's dual fuel customers will get a council tax rebate if they make sufficient energy savings.

Edward Miliband: We will certainly look at that. The point of the community energy saving programme, the details of which we will announce shortly, is precisely to encourage that sort of work between energy companies, local authorities and community groups, to ascertain how we can help some of the poorest people in our society with their gas and electricity bills and with smart metering, and ensure that they can get a fair deal. We will definitely examine that proposal.

Barry Gardiner: What discussions has my right hon. Friend had with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to implement the woodfuel strategy, which straddles both Departments? Has he considered the small costs of implementing that strategy, which might contribute to our renewables obligation and improve the quality of woodland throughout the kingdom?

Edward Miliband: My hon. Friend asks about an important subject, about which he has great expertise. It is important to consider such proposals—for example, renewable heat can help us in future. Such generation is currently at a low level and we want to introduce a renewable heat incentive precisely to encourage the sort of proposals that my hon. Friend mentioned. We are undertaking work with the Forestry Commission and DEFRA, and it is important in contributing to our renewables energy strategy.

Charles Hendry: Does not the Secretary of State's initial answer simply confirm that the Energy Act is more about talk than desperately needed action? No real action has been taken on our critical lack of gas storage or how we can make carbon capture and storage a reality. There is no urgency about creating a national grid fit for the 21st century or methods of introducing the next generation of renewable technologies. There have been years of talking about the details of smart metering and feed-in tariffs, and further delays on biogas and renewable heat. Fuel poverty has not even been mentioned. Is it not clear that, if we are to have an energy policy that is secure, affordable and low in carbon, we need not more talking shops but a change of Government?

Edward Miliband: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman; he obviously practised that in the mirror this morning. The answer to his question is no. The Energy Act is facilitating progress on a whole range of fronts, including feed-in tariffs, gas storage and nuclear power— [ Interruption. ] The hon. Gentleman says that that is all talk, but 17 gas storage projects are planned in this country, and the Langeled pipeline has been built since 2006—since the previous dispute between Russia and Ukraine—and is now supplying a large amount of our gas. This is not about talk; it is about a party that understands the importance of energy security and fairness to consumers.

Fuel Poverty

David Taylor: How many people in (a) North-West Leicestershire constituency, (b) the east midlands and (c) England are in fuel poverty.

Joan Ruddock: The most recently available sub-regional split of fuel poverty relates to 2003 and shows that, in North-West Leicestershire, there were about 2,300 fuel-poor households. More recent figures for the east midlands and England show that, in 2006, there were about 236,000 fuel-poor households in the east midlands and about 2.4 million fuel-poor households in England.

David Taylor: Further to the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Devine), 40 per cent. of social housing tenants are forced to pay over the odds for at least one kind of energy because they use prepayment meters. This is sharp practice resulting from utterly unacceptable laxity on the part of the regulator. Does the Minister agree that Ofgem is still failing lamentably to carry out its principal brief, which is to protect the interests of low-income consumers? This disproportionate and grossly unfair charge continues to push many of my constituents yet further into fuel poverty.

Joan Ruddock: I sympathise with my hon. Friend's constituents who are in fuel poverty. I assure him that we are working as hard as possible to address this matter. We have made it absolutely clear to Ofgem and the energy companies that unfair pricing has to stop, in relation both to prepayment meters and to standard credit. Pressure from us has resulted in £300 million being taken out of the premiums paid by customers, including those using prepayment meters, but I agree that this has gone on for far too long. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, Ofgem is now consulting on changing the licence agreements in order to deal with unfair practices. He has also made it absolutely clear that, if the regulator does not succeed, we will act in his place.

Simon Hughes: I follow exactly the last two questions from colleagues on the Labour Benches. We have now had nearly 12 years of a Labour Government, and we still do not have a fair system for fuel pricing for domestic users. Will Ministers promise that, by the time of the next UK-wide elections—be they the European elections or the general election—there will be a pricing system under which people will not be penalised for the method by which they pay, such as a prepayment meter—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am not expecting the hon. Gentleman to make a speech. I think that the Minister will now be able to handle a reply.

Simon Hughes: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has the privilege of being a Front-Bench spokesman, and making a speech is not what I expect. The Minister may answer.

Joan Ruddock: We have made it absolutely clear that it is the regulator's responsibility to act. The consultation is under way, and it ends on 20 February. It is designed to work out a system that will bring unfair pricing methods to an end. That is what we want, and we are determined to get it, one way or the other.

Paddy Tipping: Will the Minister have discussions with colleagues about the definition of fuel poverty? Is there not a case for targeting winter fuel allowances more directly, and to extend them to people with long-term, chronic illnesses?

Mr. Speaker: That is a supplementary. That is the way they should be asked.

Joan Ruddock: I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I assure him that all aspects of our fuel poverty strategy are under review. It is important for us to see how best we can target the available resources and do the best job. This is an extraordinarily serious matter; we are deeply concerned, and I am looking at every aspect of the scheme.

David Evennett: Can the Minister tell us why fuel poverty data are always two years out of date?

Joan Ruddock: The fuel poverty data take time to collect. They are based on a survey of 8,000 households in England; the devolved authorities obviously have to carry out the same work. In order to get an accurate picture, it is necessary to take two years' data and to combine them. As I review everything else, I am perfectly happy to look into the way in which the data are collected. We are living in rather extraordinary times in terms of price rises, and that is what has so heavily distorted the numbers of people in fuel poverty, rather than the condition of the properties.

Tony Lloyd: My hon. Friend will know as well as I do that among the poorest in our society are those who depend on the private rented sector. Fuel poverty in that sector is acute, because private landlords have no incentive to provide proper insulation. What can the Government do to ensure that we incentivise those private landlords?

Joan Ruddock: The Government have already attempted to incentivise private landlords, but my hon. Friend is correct in believing that the response has been inadequate. We clearly need to do more. We are currently preparing documents for consultation on a wide range of energy-efficiency measures and we will look at the role of private landlords in those consultations.

Bob Spink: We are right to address the question of prepayment meters, but another issue that affects many of the poorest people is our inability to insulate very poor housing stock, particularly when it lacks cavity wall insulation. I know that the Government are working on this, but can they redouble their efforts to find ways around this problem, which affects the most vulnerable people?

Joan Ruddock: I hope that the hon. Gentleman might be aware that the Prime Minister announced a new programme in September, putting £1 billion behind energy efficiency. We have a number of such programmes, the foremost of which in terms of numbers, is the obligation on the energy companies. Over the next three-year period, we expect 6 million households to benefit from the measures already in place. We always keep them under review, and if we can do more, we will. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the programme has been accelerated and that more households are being offered help under those programmes.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Barry Sheerman: What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on his Department's policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from housing.

Joan Ruddock: The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change met the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on 17 December last year. Discussions included the Department for Communities and Local Government's contribution to reducing carbon dioxide emissions from housing.

Barry Sheerman: But does my hon. Friend agree that homes are really at the heart of cutting carbon emissions and that although we want more houses, we also want them to be more sustainable? There are rumours that the Homes and Communities Agency is being pushed to concentrate on numbers and not to take so much notice of sustainability.

Joan Ruddock: I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of homes, because 27 per cent. of our emissions come from our homes. The Homes and Communities Agency was set up and began operations only in December last year, but I can assure my hon. Friend that it is leading the way on making the zero-carbon homes agenda, which is our target for 2016, a reality. It is also leading with exemplar programmes like the carbon challenge and the Thames Gateway eco region. Over the years, the decent homes programme has brought a million homes up to decent standard, with the result that higher energy-efficiency standards exist in the public sector than in the private sector. Over the next three years, the Homes and Communities Agency will manage £2.4 billion worth of programmes to ensure that 350,000 homes are brought up to the decent home standard. I can assure my hon. Friend that the agency is committed, and that contact between the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Communities and Local Government is ongoing and specifically directed at reducing carbon emissions.

David Heathcoat-Amory: The Government are going to ban the use of incandescent light bulbs before they are required to do so. Is the Minister aware that the alternative bulbs are not only more expensive, but hazardous because they contain mercury, are unsuitable for certain applications—either because they come on too slowly or give out too little light, which can again be dangerous—and totally unsuitable for things like picture lights in galleries and so forth? Will she rethink her policy of gold-plating the EU requirement and rethink banning the use of those bulbs before that is necessary?

Joan Ruddock: I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says, but I would be very surprised if his Front-Bench team did not support the use of energy-efficient bulbs in place of the inefficient ones in use today. If every household in the country changed, 5 million tonnes of carbon would be saved, so it is extremely important that we make that change. The right hon. Gentleman says that they are dangerous, but there is only a tiny amount of mercury in those bulbs and disposal facilities are available in every local authority to get rid of them safely: people can just throw them away and if they have an accident, it is simple to deal with it. These bulbs are not hazardous. A few people with particular medical conditions may be sensitive to such bulbs. We are looking into that carefully and working on it with the Department of Health, and we have made the facts known to the European Commission.

David Kidney: It is great that the Government have set the goal of all new homes being zero-carbon by the middle of the next decade, but is it not important for house builders and consumers to understand what is involved in a property's being zero-carbon? Can my hon. Friend assure us that she is working across Government to set standards so that we all know what we are aiming for?

Lindsay Hoyle: Very good question.

Joan Ruddock: It is a very good question. The Government are working on this. Both our Department and the Department for Communities and Local Government are very much engaged in the definitions, and a consultation is in hand.

Gregory Barker: While our European competitors such as Germany are rolling out far larger energy-efficiency programmes, progress here is still too slow. Indeed, the Government have now cancelled the launch of their heat and energy-saving consultation for the second time. Given the sad failure to transform the energy-efficiency of our housing stock over the last decade, may I invite the Secretary of State to borrow yet another ambitious Conservative policy and offer all home-owners a £6,500 entitlement to energy retrofit their homes, thus creating real efficiency, real savings and real green jobs?

Joan Ruddock: Let me respond immediately to the hon. Gentleman's final point. He says that every home owner would be entitled to such a package, but when we made inquiries of the shadow Front-Bench team we were told that 1 per cent. of the population would receive it. If the hon. Gentleman has now resiled from that, may I ask him how the Conservatives will find the £150 billion that the programme would cost, given that they intend to cut the Department of Energy and Climate Change budget?
	Our heat and energy savings consultation will indeed be delivered. It has certainly not been cancelled.

Charles Kennedy: What recent assessment he has made of progress towards meeting the Government's target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent. by 2010; and if he will make a statement.

Edward Miliband: Carbon dioxide emissions are expected to be reduced to 15 per cent. below 1990 levels by 2010. That will help to make Britain one of the few countries to exceed our Kyoto target, although it is short of the more challenging unilateral 20 per cent. goal. So progress has been made, but we need to do more. Later this year I shall set out a carbon budget for the coming years to enable us to make our contribution to a successful global deal at Copenhagen this December.

Charles Kennedy: Let me thank the Secretary of State for his courtesy in choosing to reply as well as for the content of his reply, and then move quickly on.
	Will the Government be building the recommendations of the Committee on Climate Change into the consultation on carbon capture and storage, and would he or his colleagues and officials be willing to meet me—along with, perhaps, the non-governmental organisations—for discussions at some stage between now and July, when my private Member's Bill will be up for debate, to establish what further progress can be made?

Edward Miliband: I shall meet the right hon. Gentleman with pleasure to discuss his private Member's Bill.
	Lord Turner's recommendations in his report published in December represent an important step forward in the ways in which we can drive carbon capture and storage into any new coal-fired power stations. We are examining those recommendations carefully, and will say more about them in the next few weeks.

Eric Illsley: As my right hon. Friend knows, energy generation is one of the biggest producers of carbon dioxide, and if any major and worthwhile reductions are to be made, our means of power generation will have to be addressed. Will my right hon. Friend speed up our moves towards carbon capture and storage, given that people are now protesting against any form of coal burning, and will he also look at what Newcastle university is doing in connection with underground coal gasification?

Edward Miliband: My hon. Friend has made a good point. One of the important aspects of the climate and energy package that was agreed in the European Union last December was the €9 billion of investment in carbon capture and storage. That will make a huge difference to carbon capture and storage across Europe, and will build on the demonstration plant that Britain is seeking to build. I believe that we will be in a strong position to secure at least one of the European demonstration projects in addition to our own.
	My hon. Friend is also right to suggest that we need to encourage the whole range of technologies and draw on the work of the academic community, including Newcastle university.

Christopher Chope: Does the Secretary of State accept that the Government's success in wrecking the national economy will result in lower CO2 emissions?

Edward Miliband: Obviously, I do not share the hon. Gentleman's description of our programme. What has happened to CO2 emissions in the last decade is interesting: we have, for the first time, decoupled economic growth, which has been at about 38 per cent. in that period, from carbon emissions, which have fallen. That is a major step forward, and it is an indication of what we need to do in the future.

Patricia Hewitt: As the Government focus on the carbon reduction targets, will my right hon. Friend redouble his efforts to ensure that green jobs and a green new deal remain at the heart of the Government's programme to stimulate the economy during the global downturn?

Edward Miliband: My right hon. Friend speaks as a former Business Secretary who made great strides on energy, and she is absolutely right that, as we think about the future of our economy, we have to think about the low-carbon sectors where jobs are available, such as renewables, nuclear—in my view—and carbon capture and storage. Britain has unique assets in this area, not only in terms of renewables, but also in relation to carbon capture and storage. We need to turn those unique assets into employment for people in this country.

Greg Clark: Given its effect on emissions, does the Secretary of State personally approve of the decision to build a third runway at Heathrow?

Edward Miliband: It was the right decision, and let me explain to the hon. Gentleman why. Some may argue that people should stop flying, but that is not my opinion. I believe that we should have constrained expansion of aviation, and that is why we have been very clear in the Heathrow decision about the fact that only 50 per cent. of the slots have been granted and any future expansion beyond that will be conditional on the target we have set—we are the first Government in the world to have set it—according to which aviation emissions in 2050, at which time we have set our target to achieve an 80 per cent. cut in carbon emissions, must be back to 2005 emission levels. We have taken the right decision: constrained expansion of aviation.

Greg Clark: The Secretary of State is an intelligent man. He knows that these mock concessions fool no one. Indeed, it is telling that the Prime Minister's old tactic of briefing against his predecessor and claiming victory for spurious concessions is now being employed by his protégé against him. On emissions, will the Secretary of State confirm that one quarter of the progress claimed by the Government on emissions is bought in from other European countries?

Edward Miliband: Of course credits play a role, but I am surprised at what the hon. Gentleman says about aviation because he wrote a pamphlet in 2003 called "Free to Travel" and in it—I here refer Members to the position that there should be no more flying—he said:
	"More people should be able to travel by air in future."
	He also said:
	"We will not necessarily set our face against any or all expansion of the UK's airports capacity".
	So once again we see that the hon. Gentleman has not thought his policy through.

David Anderson: The Secretary of State has mentioned support for carbon capture and storage, but is he aware that people in the industry are concerned about the slow progress that is being made and also that the demonstration projects might not be extensive enough? Is he prepared to meet me and representatives of the industry to try to resolve this?

Edward Miliband: I will definitely meet my hon. Friend. He is right that we need to make progress in this area. There is a huge amount of expertise and talent around the country, and research that we need to draw on, and I look forward to discussing those issues with him and his colleagues.

Michael Weir: Following changes that Germany secured in the next stage of the EU emissions trading scheme, some commentators have calculated that up to 96 per cent. of processing firms could receive free credits. Has the Secretary of State identified which sectors of the UK economy will receive free credits and what impact that will have on future emissions targets?

Edward Miliband: The hon. Gentleman asks an important question. We will judge who gets free credits by a rigorous analysis of which sectors are really exposed to so-called carbon leakage—the UK argued very strongly for that in relation to the directive. What there must not be is simply a blanket exemption for everyone in relation to free allowances. This process will take place during this year, and we will then come up with the sectors that are affected. I think the import of the hon. Gentleman's question is that we must be rigorous and we must make this as demanding an EU ETS as possible, and I share that view.

European Supergrid

Alan Whitehead: What discussions he has had with his EU counterparts on proposals for a European supergrid.

Mike O'Brien: Departmental officials have had discussions with the European Commission and other European countries about improved grid connections for offshore wind and to link up to European grids. A European supergrid is a big, long-term, interesting but expensive concept.

Alan Whitehead: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that reply. He will be aware of the proposals for North sea grid interconnectors using direct current cables and for wider connections using such cables across the whole of Europe to connect various forms of renewable energy together. Is he willing to meet representatives of the European e-Parliament, who are promoting that latter initiative in order to connect the whole of Europe's renewable output for resources delivered across Europe as a whole?

Mike O'Brien: In principle, I am happy to meet those representatives. However, in terms of linking up renewables, particularly wind power, to the UK, we have a massive programme to link up to 33 GW of electricity, at a cost of about £15 billion. The cost is already substantial, so I would not want my hon. Friend to think that we are other than cautious about this. As a long-term concept it is interesting, but in the short term we must focus on the things that are more at hand: getting offshore wind farms properly connected to the UK, so that we ensure that we get the electricity generated here.

Henry Bellingham: Is the Minister aware that more than 600 wind turbines have either been completed or are planned for sites in the Wash and along the Norfolk coast, and that those could be linked up to a supergrid? Is he aware that those offshore wind farms command widespread public support, in complete contrast to the small clusters of onshore ones, which do a huge amount of damage to the environment and are very unpopular?

Mike O'Brien: It is the case that we will need both onshore and offshore wind power in order to ensure that we reach the level of capacity that we need for renewables—I see some nodding of heads on the Conservative Front Bench. The hon. Gentleman has to appreciate that although those who oppose onshore wind farms are often speaking for some of their constituents, there is a national objective of ensuring that we develop the wind and renewable generation capacity that this country needs. That means that we need to continue to develop both offshore and onshore wind power.

Robert Flello: In his discussions with his European colleagues about pan-European energy levels, will my hon. and learned Friend also raise the issue of the UK ceramics industry, which is, and has been for a while, at a disadvantage compared with other European producers because of the energy costs in this country?

Mike O'Brien: I am very happy to raise that matter. I am aware of the concerns, particularly in Staffordshire and the Stoke area, about the problems that those in the ceramics industry have had, particularly in getting access to some energy sources. I am happy to ensure that we continue to raise those issues, as my hon. Friend and some of his colleagues have been doing for some time.

Kyoto Protocol

John Barrett: What recent discussions he has had with his foreign counterparts on a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol.

Edward Miliband: In December last year, I participated in the United Nations climate change conference in Poznan, which was designed to prepare the way for a global agreement in Copenhagen this December. Over the coming year, the UK Government will try to make our own contribution to a global deal, through, among other things, our own ambitious domestic commitments, our work in the EU and co-operation with the new American Administration.

John Barrett: I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. He may wish to follow President Obama and
	"roll back the spectre of a warming planet".
	As such, will he ensure that the climate conference in December is not derailed by discussions over what developing countries must do and that it accepts that those who produced the most CO2 over the past century must take most of the responsibility for emission reductions?

Edward Miliband: All of us want to follow President Obama, who has certainly made an impressive start. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the commitment of developed countries. I think that they have to make strong and challenging commitments. We must find ways to ensure that developing countries are part of a global deal and can move away from a "business as usual" approach on emissions. Part of our responsibility is to find ways to finance those changes in developing countries. I agree with him about the approach that he suggests.

Rob Marris: Does my hon. Friend agree that, as per capita carbon dioxide emissions in the United Kingdom have risen in this century, the statutory target for cutting those emissions by 80 per cent. by 2050 will be impossible to meet, particularly with the continued expansion of aviation, and does he agree that 80 per cent. is an unrealistic target to achieve at Copenhagen?

Edward Miliband: No, I do not agree with my hon. Friend, which is rare. I think 80 per cent. is a realistic target. The Committee on Climate Change has shown in its report how that can be achieved through what we do with domestic transport, the power sector and the household sector. Yes, ambitious measures are required, but it is most important that they are driven by the science. The science says that the world as a whole must cut carbon emissions by at least 50 per cent. by 2050, and that developed countries must play their part in that. The target is non-negotiable. We must meet it, and I think we can meet it.

Topical Questions

John Baron: If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Edward Miliband: The Department of Energy and Climate Change is committed to working to ensure security for Britain. During the past few weeks, we have been working with our EU partners to resolve the dispute over the gas supply between Russia and Ukraine, which has led to states of emergency in some European countries. The end of the dispute earlier this week was welcome and overdue. It is essential that the EU now takes effective steps in the European strategic energy review to improve energy resilience, and it is always important that we remain vigilant in ensuring UK security of supply by working with National Grid and Ofgem.

John Baron: Residents living in fuel poverty in my constituency often do not have a bank account, so do not have access to the cheapest energy tariffs. Will the Secretary of State consider instructing energy companies to state on their bills whether customers are on the cheapest tariff and, if not, how much they would save if they were, and, more important, how they can gain access to that tariff?

Edward Miliband: The hon. Gentleman has suggested an ingenious idea, which we will consider. Ofgem has said that it needs to provide better information for customers, and the House will agree with his point about people who do not have access to bank accounts. It is important that Ofgem is proposing changes in the law and licence conditions to prevent unfair discrimination, but I agree that better information is also important for those customers.

Graham Allen: May I ask about the miners' compensation scheme? I speak with some passion as the son of a coal miner. Is it appropriate that almost half the money set aside for that scheme has gone into the pockets of lawyers, some of whom are detained at Her Majesty's pleasure? Will he ensure that the money is properly directed?

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is topical questions, so supplementaries should be brief.

Mike O'Brien: I have considerable concern about that—my constituency is also a mining one—and some of my constituents have been faced with solicitors who have claimed money not only from them but from the previous Department of Trade and Industry and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. That is a matter of considerable concern. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal recently made some decisions that I welcome, but a lot more needs to be done to ensure that we get to the bottom of what seems to be a scandal of considerable proportions.

Anne Main: What assessment has the Minister made of the 10 per cent. reduction in fuel charges announced today for standard tariff payers, which will result in a £100 reduction for prompt payment, whereas those on prepayment meters, as of December, will get only £22 off their bills, yet again widening the inequity between the two tariffs?

Mike O'Brien: We welcome the decision of British Gas to bring down its prices. We met British Gas on Monday, and gave it a clear message. It has now written to me saying that it has accepted that message and has responded. We now want the other energy companies to get the message that wholesale prices are going down and we want prices to follow. We also welcome Ofgem's work in its probe to ensure that unfair pricing with prepayment meters is dealt with. We have made it very clear that if the matter is not dealt with by Ofgem and the energy companies, we will legislate to do so.

Barry Sheerman: Does my hon. Friend realise that if only 0.5 per cent. of the upland, peat land and coastal marshes were taken out of operation and used for construction or any other purpose, it would totally negate any efforts to meet our carbon reduction targets for 2050? Will we preserve those areas?

Mike O'Brien: We certainly want to ensure that each decision on a development is taken after a full and proper assessment of the environmental impact. Therefore, we have to ensure that we recognise areas of particular sensitivity and the importance of the need to preserve them, while balancing that with the need to ensure the proper development of renewables for the long-term safeguarding not only of our country but of the planet.

Anne McIntosh: The Government are committed to renewable energy sources and to some stringent requirements under the EU landfill directive, which they are currently on course to breach. Will the Minister therefore look at renewable energy sources such as energy from waste, combined heat and power, and anaerobic digestion? Otherwise, we will have to pay fines for not meeting the landfill targets, and that would be very unfair.

Joan Ruddock: The Government are committed to ensuring that we do not pay fines under the landfill directive, and that has been the whole purpose of the major programme to provide more infrastructure, including £10 million for anaerobic digestion and £2 billion of private finance initiative credits to develop new ways of dealing with waste, some of which can of course include the production of energy and heat.

Clive Efford: The Government have set environmental targets that must be met before expansion at Heathrow can go ahead. Does my right hon. Friend agree that those targets must be independently assessed, enforceable and legally binding if we are to restore public confidence?

Edward Miliband: I do agree with my hon. Friend, and that is why we have referred the question of the new target, and how we can best implement it, to the Committee on Climate Change, the independent experts. It is a significant target and I hope that Opposition Front Benchers—especially given their past writings—will look at that target. We are the first Government in the world to set such a target, and I agree that it must be enforceable, and enforced.

Philip Dunne: Thousands of jobs in north Wales and elsewhere are dependent on electricity generated by the Wylfa nuclear power plant in north Wales, especially at the aluminium smelter on Anglesey, which is a supplier to one of the largest employers in my constituency. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has recently rejected commercial proposals to extend the safe operating life of that power plant. Will the Secretary of State now work with the Business Secretary to seek the reversal of that decision and protect jobs at this difficult time for the local economy?

Mike O'Brien: The answer to that is yes. This week I met the local authority involved to discuss some of the issues. The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform is seeking to find out whether the NDA and Anglesey Aluminium—and Rio Tinto, which owns the latter—are prepared to negotiate a deal. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the issue is not only price, although that is a key factor, but what will happen when Wylfa goes and whether there is an alternative energy source available in the long term. It is a complex negotiation, but we are certainly anxious to resolve it and save the jobs involved.

Lindsay Hoyle: Does my right hon. Friend agree that many people have been put into fuel poverty because the energy companies have increased their prices so hugely and have made immoral profits? The best and quickest way to take people out of fuel poverty is to reduce the price of electricity and gas alike.

Edward Miliband: My hon. Friend has been a doughty and effective campaigner on this issue. Let me put it this way: he is more right than wrong. We welcome the price reductions announced by Centrica this morning, and it is important that other companies follow suit. We need to see price reductions comparable to the price increases that we saw earlier this year. Wholesale gas and electricity prices are falling, and it is important that the benefit is fed through to customers.

Martin Horwood: Partnerships for Renewables is a rare British example of an initiative to promote the kind of community-based wind energy and renewable energy that has proved so popular in other countries and that might go some way to diffuse the opposition of local Conservative politicians. Why have the Government done so little to resource and promote Partnerships for Renewables, to the extent that most local authorities, agencies and Government Departments barely seem to know that it exists?

Edward Miliband: The hon. Gentleman often talks sense, and I think that he is talking sense on this occasion, too. We need to do more on Partnerships for Renewables. The public sector as a whole has not, in my view, risen to the challenge of building renewables sufficiently. There is more that we can do in local communities. The feed-in tariff will help in that regard, but I think that Partnerships for Renewables is a very important project. It needs to be promoted and the public sector needs to step up its game.

Denis MacShane: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the raw fear in the steel sector of South Yorkshire and other manufacturing about the fact that the energy companies are not reducing prices for electricity to industry, when the price of oil has descended to a quarter of what it was six months ago? The Prime Minister is doing what it takes on banks—can the Secretary of State do what it takes on energy prices? If he cannot, will he understand that calls for the state ownership of our electricity companies will again come into play? We will not see manufacturing industry destroyed, as happened when the Opposition were last in power.

Mike O'Brien: I certainly agree that we do not want to see the steel industry or other industries destroyed in the way that they were in the 1980s. However, we need to ensure that where energy prices are coming down and contracts are being negotiated—that is a key issue—those high energy consumers are able to get the best possible deals from the energy companies.
	We welcome the fact that domestic energy supplier prices are coming down and the announcement from British Gas today, but we are also aware that wholesale prices are coming down. That will give some opportunities for large industrial users to negotiate better contracts. Some of them are tied into long-term contracts and that is part of the problem. New contracts will enable better prices, and I hope that that will help some of the highly intensive energy users.

HOUSE OF COMMONS COMMISSION

The hon. Member for North Devon, representing the House of Commons Commission, was asked—

Visitor Passes

Andrew Pelling: What plans the Commission has to recycle lanyards used with parliamentary visitor passes once they have been discarded.

Nick Harvey: The new parliamentary visitor pass system was introduced last summer. The new system incorporates a temporary photographic paper pass carried in a lanyard. The lanyards are recovered at the exits to the parliamentary estate and returned to use where suitable. About 30 per cent. of the lanyards issued are currently reused in this way.

Andrew Pelling: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that answer, which follows up an answer that I received from the Leader of the House about three months ago which suggested that the items were being stored before a decision on reuse was made. It is very good news that the House is reusing them. What work is being done to ensure that we further increase the reuse of the cords for visitors' passes? After all, we have up to 1 million visitors a year coming through this place.

Nick Harvey: We do indeed. It is recognised that the current system of putting the passes into bins is not satisfactory. A new system, with better signage and a free-standing device to hang the passes on, is being brought in. That should improve the recycling rate considerably, but we do recognise that some people take their passes home as souvenirs of their visit.

LEADER OF THE HOUSE

The Leader of the House was asked—

Public Bills

Evan Harris: If she will take steps to ensure that all Government amendments and new clauses to public bills are debated by the House on Report.

Chris Bryant: As far as possible, we always try to make sure that the Government do not table new issues on Report and that there is plenty of time for full debate. I have been working with Ministers in charge of Bills to ensure that we do better this year, but I confess that it is an art, not a science. No matter how hard I try, I cannot prevent Members' loquacity or prolixity.

Evan Harris: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his response. Does he recall that during proceedings on the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, huge swathes of Government amendments and new clauses were never reached, which meant that this House failed to do its job in holding the Executive to account and carrying out the scrutiny that the Prime Minister rightly says it is a priority for him to improve? On the Coroners and Justice Bill, for example, will the Deputy Leader of the House give us an assurance that every effort will be made by Government business managers to ensure that this House can debate both Government and Opposition amendments and new clauses? If necessary, will he provide the second day on Report that is so often needed for us to do our job properly?

Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman is right that we need to make sure we do our scrutiny job properly, and that means devoting enough time to every element that needs to be debated. However, he is wrong in the sense that some Government amendments introduced at Report stage are in direct response to requests from the Committee.  [ Interruption. ] The hon. Gentleman is chuntering again, but the truth is that that applies to the majority of Government amendments. I have spoken already to the Minister responsible for the Bill that he mentioned. We are trying hard to make sure that we are not introducing new elements and areas of debate and, if necessary, we will try to provide a second day for debate on Report.

Rob Marris: Since 1997, there have been 66 criminal justice Bills. That is too many, and too often they merely undo improperly scrutinised earlier Bills, thereby wasting the House's time. For proper scrutiny, and to avoid that problem in the future, may I urge my hon. Friend to ensure that we have two days on Report stage much more frequently?

Chris Bryant: I think that we need to have the right amount of time, but two other things can help. First, my hon. Friend has campaigned for a long time for pre-legislative scrutiny, which is an important way to make sure that we do a better job before a Bill is introduced into Parliament. Secondly, post-legislative scrutiny can identify legislation that is not working or has not been useful. For that matter, it can also be used on legislation that has not been fully implemented. We should take such legislation off the statute book and not let it lie there dormant.

George Young: The Deputy Leader of the House will know that the current regime for proceedings on Report was introduced about 10 years ago, following recommendations from the Modernisation Committee. Should they not be reviewed now? How might that happen, given that the Modernisation Committee has apparently stopped meeting?

Chris Bryant: I am not sure that this might not be a matter for consideration by the Procedure Committee; it has a splendid Chairman, who is unfortunately not able to be with us at this moment, and it does a very good job. However, the right hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, as hon. Members of all parties have occasionally not been satisfied with how the Report stage has progressed. Sometimes, they have confused Committee stage with Report stage, and that has made it difficult for us to do our job properly. So perhaps this is something that the Procedure Committee should look at.

David Heath: It did not take long for the Deputy Leader of the House to forget that Report stage is the key moment for Back Benchers to scrutinise Bills properly. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the problem is not that Back-Bench Members speak for too long, as he suggests, but that programme motions do not take account of the business that is to be transacted? Moreover, far too many Government amendments are introduced at Report stage, not because they respond to points raised in Committee but because, as a result of the idleness or incompetence of the Ministers responsible for the Bill in the first place, they were not ready earlier.

Chris Bryant: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is important for the Government to consider all the relevant issues before legislation is introduced. We should not bring in new elements after that, so it is important that the short titles of most Bills are fairly tight to render that impossible. However, he is wrong to suggest that the vast majority of the amendments tabled by the Government are new ones of their own devising. The vast majority are concessionary to the Opposition, and sometimes they are even a concession to a good point made by the Liberal Democrats.

Written Questions

David Taylor: How long on average it took to answer parliamentary questions for (a) ordinary and (b) named-day written answer in the last five years.

Chris Bryant: I am afraid that I must disappoint my hon. Friend. Collating the 73,357 questions to 29 Departments, and working out a mean, median or indeed average reply rate has not been possible. However, Departments know that they should answer written parliamentary questions within a working week, and named-day questions on the day that they are for answer. I want to know about it if they are failing to do so. As it happens, the office of Leader of the House has answered 100 per cent. of named-day questions on the day that they were for answer, and 200 out of 202 other questions within five days.

David Taylor: Computers have been around for 60 years, for goodness' sake. Departments are required to answer questions accurately, promptly and truthfully, but their performance is often deplorable, as I know from my protracted attempts over the past year to extract information about the recording of hospitality for senior civil servants. Does my hon. Friend support my recommendation that Secretaries of State should have their salaries reduced by, say, 5 per cent. for every day over the two-week target that their Departments take to answer the average written question?

Chris Bryant: I am not sure that I can entirely support my hon. Friend in that suggestion—although perhaps if all Secretaries of State were paid the same as Deputy Leaders of the House that would be an interesting point. The important point that I think he is trying to make is that every Department should answer questions promptly, fully and without any form of obfuscation, and I want to ensure that that is what they do.

Peter Bone: The Deputy Leader of the House is being unusually intransparent—if that is a word; I like to make things up—untransparent. [Hon. Members: "Opaque."] Indeed. Anyway, the point that I am making is that it is beyond belief that an average could not be worked out by taking a sample of questions. My view is that the Government are hiding something. Does he agree?

Chris Bryant: Funnily enough, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I do not think that I am being opaque. I certainly do not think that I am being intransparent. The important point is that we should ensure that Departments in every area of government answer questions properly on the named day or within the time scale. The vast majority of questions are done so. He may not be happy with every answer that he gets, but the one thing that I undertake to take on—I have been working closely with ministerial colleagues in every Department—is for instance, before Prorogation, to ensure that Ministers do not just suddenly say, "Oh well, prorogation is coming up; we're not going to answer any questions." We did better last year than the year before. I also want to ensure that, if there are pinch points in individual Departments and we are not getting sufficient answers swiftly enough, we deal with that.

David Drew: I hear what my hon. Friend says, but is it not disgraceful that some of the questions that were not answered had been tabled months before Prorogation? It is a device to allow Departments to get away with it. I retabled all my questions in the new Session, but I hope that he will look into this, because it is not right.

Chris Bryant: That matter was raised before the last Prorogation, and I wrote to Ministers at the time laying down the rules that govern it. I am very happy to provide a copy of that letter to my hon. Friend and to place one in the Library.

Shailesh Vara: The Deputy Leader of the House tells us that he wishes to be informed where there are lapses. Perhaps he ought to be aware that, at the end of the 2007-08 parliamentary Session, nearly 500 questions, tabled for more than a month, did not receive a reply at all—not even the usual Prorogation reply. Will he look into these serious lapses and tell us what he proposes to do to ensure that, in future, all written questions receive a substantive reply in good time?

Chris Bryant: The shadow Deputy Leader of the House takes a keen interest in what happens before Prorogation. As I said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), I wrote to Ministers before Prorogation to try to ensure that, if anyone was thinking of using such a device to get out of answering a question, they should not do so. Perhaps my letter was sent a little late, and this year we will try to make a better fist of this.

Parliamentary Privilege

Nicholas Winterton: What recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the arrangements for parliamentary privilege in protecting the rights of hon. Members.

Chris Bryant: The right of Members of Parliament to speak without fear or hindrance, and their duty to speak without favour are essential parts of our parliamentary democracy and will always need a stout defence.

Nicholas Winterton: I am pleased that the Deputy Leader of the House rightly considers parliamentary privilege to be essential, critical and vital if Members of Parliament are to carry out their duties and responsibilities without fear, hindrance or favour, but does he not agree that implementation of the statement made some while ago by Mr. Speaker that a Committee should be set up to look into this matter is very long overdue? Bearing in mind not only the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) but the more recent case—I am not entering into its merits—of my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), it clearly is time that the House had an opportunity to look deeply at how parliamentary privilege might be safeguarded.

Chris Bryant: As I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will know, parliamentary privilege has been fiercely debated for many centuries; indeed, elements of it go back to 1515. It is important that we have a clear understanding of parliamentary privilege. Any hon. Members who have not read the 1999 report of the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege should do so; it is a fine exposition of the issues. On the question relating to the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), I think that you, Mr. Speaker, are likely to cover the matter in your statement in a few moments. On the Committee that was set up, we would be more than happy for it to meet. Unfortunately, we have not had the support of Opposition parties on that. The Committee could choose a Chairman, and as soon as police or any other investigations are completed, it will be able to get on with its business.

Patrick Cormack: I am glad that the Deputy Leader of the House referred to the 1999 report; I was a member of the Committee that produced it. The Government have never implemented the recommendations, even though they indicated sympathy with them. May we have an early debate on that report, with some definitive statements from the Government?

Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, not least because the report highlighted the significance of freedom of speech, which is vital to our parliamentary democracy. The report reiterated article 9 of the Bill of Rights of 1689, which says that
	"freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament".
	There were a series of recommendations. Some of them have been followed through in the business of the House, and some of them have not yet been put into law. The hon. Gentleman perhaps makes a good point about the need for us to have a full debate, so that people can fully understand the nature of parliamentary privilege, which is not quite as some members of the press have suggested it is.

Speaker's Statement

Mr. Speaker: I have a statement to make. Yesterday evening, the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) raised a point of order in which he reported that police had entered his office without permission and demanded that he release to them correspondence from his constituency. The House authorities have looked into the matter. I can tell the House that the case concerned general inquiries in the course of an investigation into a serious crime that may involve threatening behaviour towards Members and other public figures. It did not involve the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham or his staff.
	In the course of the investigation, a police officer assigned to duties in the House, but exercising her responsibilities as a constable, sought assistance from the staff of the hon. Member and agreed a time to meet them. Assistance was given by the hon. Member's staff after the officer had explained the nature of the inquiry. At a point in their discussion, the hon. Member was contacted by his staff because it was thought necessary to seek his permission for the police to obtain a single-sheet document from his office. The purpose of the investigation was explained to the hon. Member, and after discussion, he agreed to supply the document.  [Interruption.] Order.
	I can confirm to the House that at no time during those proceedings did the police exercise any compulsory powers to require the document to be supplied. The hon. Member and his staff were not the subject of the police inquiry. It was not a matter that involved the seeking of a search warrant. I can confirm that the document is not privileged, but for reasons related to the sensitivity of the police investigation, I make no further comment about the details of the case.
	The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham was made aware of these details by the police. While I accept that, in this case, the police officer acted with good intentions, I have instructed that any police officer assigned to duties in the House must advise the Serjeant at Arms of the intention to seek the assistance of a Member and his staff in his offices. The Serjeant at Arms will in turn approach the Member before the police take further action. I shall, of course, keep the House informed of any details concerning the case in-so-far as it affects the privileges of the House.

Business of the House

Harriet Harman: With permission, I should like to make a statement about the business for next week:
	Monday 26 January—Second Reading of the Coroners and Justice Bill.
	Tuesday 27 January—Second Reading of the Welfare Reform Bill.
	Wednesday 28 January—Opposition Day [2nd Allotted Day]. There will be a full day's debate on an Opposition motion about the Government's proposals for Heathrow.
	Thursday 29 January—Topical debate: Holocaust memorial day, followed by a general debate on armed forces personnel.
	The provisional business for the week commencing 2 February will include:
	Monday 2 February—Remaining stages of the Political Parties and Elections Bill (Day 1).
	Tuesday 3 February—Motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports.
	Wednesday 4 February—Opposition Day [3rd Allotted Day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.
	Thursday 5 February—Topical debate: subject to be announced, followed by a general debate on food safety.
	I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for February 5 and 12 will be:
	Thursday 5 February—A debate on the report from the Justice Committee entitled "Towards Effective Sentencing".
	Thursday 12 February—A debate on the report from the Transport Committee entitled "Delivering a Sustainable Railway: A 30-year Strategy for the Railways".

Alan Duncan: I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the forthcoming business and, in turn, I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your statement just now.
	Apart from a short exchange on a point of order yesterday, this is my first formal encounter with the right hon. and learned Lady. May I say to her and the House that I am delighted to have been appointed her shadow? I have always held a dangerously romantic affection for the House of Commons, and it looks as though my teenage years spent reading  Hansard and "Erskine May" under the duvet might now finally pay off.
	I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will allow me while I hold this position to work towards three principal objectives: to explore all ways of making Parliament work better for Britain; to help overcome the low reputation of Parliament in the eyes of much of the press and the public; and to take an understanding of Parliament and our democracy into schools, so that younger people can overcome their instinctive derision for politicians. As shadow Leader of the House, one must work on many levels. One must be able to work on a non-partisan basis of trust as well as take part in vigorous exchanges of political difference. I undertake to do both.
	I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for giving us a debate on Holocaust memorial day; I hope as many Members as possible will participate in it. Given the Government's complete change of heart yesterday about disclosing expenses, in the event that the House passes today's motions, will the Leader of the House confirm that she will continue to take further steps to ensure that we as MPs are open and accountable for all the expenses that we claim from taxpayers' money?
	The UK's relationship with India is potentially one of our most crucial strategic alliances. Yesterday, however, we learned that senior Indian officials have officially complained about the "condescending" and "totally tactless" behaviour of the Foreign Secretary during his visit there last week. Given that the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform has also been in India this week, may we inquire whether he has been sent there to clear up the damage caused by the Foreign Secretary's visit—or is he there to make things worse? May we have a debate on the relationship between India and the United Kingdom, to remind the Foreign Secretary of the immense value that the whole House places on our continued friendship with a country that will become more powerful and prominent in world affairs?
	In their national security strategy, the Government have highlighted the probability of a pandemic influenza outbreak and the risks associated with it. Yet despite that danger, the Government have consistently denied Members the opportunity to raise their concerns about the matter in the House, even though we have been requesting time to debate it for well over two years. Given the importance of that risk, may we have a debate on it in Government time?
	Yesterday, we saw the release of the latest figures which show unemployment racing towards 2 million, and most forecasters predict that this year it will burst through 3 million. Today, the value of sterling is at its lowest point for nearly 25 years. The exchange rate is the price tag put on our country's value by the rest of the world, and it is plummeting. Why, if this is a global phenomenon, is Britain in so much worse a position than other countries across the globe? It is increasingly difficult to persuade the Government to debate the future of the economy in Government time. Only last week, we had to drag Ministers to the House to explain the announcement of their loans guarantee scheme. Given that the Prime Minister is so keen on telling everyone how brilliant he is, the Government's reticence on the economy seems rather strange. In the interests of recognising the saviour of the world's achievements over the past few months, may we now have a full debate in Government time on the state of the British economy and how we can escape from the Government's mishandling of our livelihoods?
	Finally, did the Leader of the House see this morning's headline which says, "What planet are they on?" Ministers have been seeing strange things—green shoots, booming houses and flickering lights at the end of imaginary tunnels. Has the right hon. and learned Lady had any similar hallucinations, and will she now come down to earth and speak of economic reality instead of the fantasy of Government headlines?

Harriet Harman: I warmly welcome the shadow Leader of the House to his new position and pay tribute to the work done by his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May). I agree with his enunciation of the principles that he is going to stand by as shadow Leader of the House, and I look forward to working with him on them.
	The hon. Gentleman welcomed the fact that we have chosen Holocaust memorial day as the subject of next week's topical debate. Last year's debate was one of the best attended, most heartfelt and important topical debates on a Thursday that we have had. As the fallout from Gaza affects all communities in this country and everybody has heartfelt concern about it, on Holocaust memorial day we will particularly reflect on the increased anti-Semitic attacks that there have been on the Jewish community and synagogues in this country. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his welcome for the Holocaust memorial day topical debate. Any time that he wants to suggest a topical debate, I would be more than happy to hear his suggestions. That is an offer that I made to him when we met privately at his request. I was very grateful to him for offering me a man-to-man chat, and I am happy to have one of those chats with him on any occasion.
	On freedom of information, we have had no change of heart. We want there to be clear rules, robust audit and proper transparency so that the public can know how much MPs spend and can have that information every year. I urge the hon. Gentleman not to get on his moral high ground against me on the question of transparency, because I have been perusing the transparency on his website. I have had trouble as Leader of the House with my own website, because somebody hacked into it and put all sorts of things on it which I had not said. I think that he has been having the same problem, because on his website—I am sure that he could not have written this himself—it says:
	"Alan Duncan has been a pivotal influence in the fortunes of the Conservative Party in Britain for well over ten years."
	I am sure that he will want to correct that. When it comes to transparency, he has been busy putting that sort of thing on his website but has failed to mention his financial interests in oil companies. I really do think that he should put his website where his mouth is.
	The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of relations between India and the United Kingdom, and he made an important point. Our relations with India are important: it is a global player that is important to our economy. There are strong relations between the Prime Minister and his Indian counterpart, and with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There are close links between the communities of Indian origin in this country and those in India, as well as the important relations that the Foreign Secretary and Foreign Office Ministers have. I will consider the hon. Gentleman's suggestion as the subject for a future topical debate.
	I will discuss with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health whether we ought to have a debate on the question of the protection in place for flu epidemics.
	The hon. Gentleman raised the worrying issue of the rise in unemployment, and as the Prime Minister said to the House yesterday, when someone becomes unemployed it is not only a devastating blow for them, but of concern to everyone, and it is of great concern to this House and the Government. That is why we have been determined to take action to recapitalise the banks, to have a funded loan guarantee scheme, to have a fiscal stimulus into the economy and to ensure that we bring forward capital infrastructure projects. We will never say, "Let the recession take its course," or that unemployment is a price worth paying. As far as the opportunity for the House to debate the economy is concerned, we are not backward in coming forward to ensure that it can debate the economy. Every week, we need to have substantive debates, statements and questions, and we make sure that that is the case.
	I shall conclude by saying that the hon. Gentleman brings a dash of sartorial elegance to his Front-Bench team, who are otherwise sometimes a bit drab; drab he is not. On a personal note, I would just like to say that I really love his watch. I understand that he was given it by the Sultan of Oman. It is absolutely lovely. Also, I really like the cufflinks that he is wearing today; are those the ones that the Sultan gave him? They are absolutely great.

Parmjit Dhanda: These are my own cufflinks, Mr. Speaker.
	Would my right hon. and learned Friend consider allowing time for a debate on the accountability of local government? A few weeks ago the chairman of Gloucester City football club and I approached Gloucestershire county council for some money to put towards a new football stadium. The council said that no money was available at all, but overnight it has announced the use of £7.4 million to purchase of a piece of land on the edge of my constituency for a 10-storey incinerator, despite the fact that those involved said in their manifesto that they opposed incineration.

Harriet Harman: The week after next, motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports will be considered. My hon. Friend might find an opportunity to raise that point then.

David Heath: May I, too, welcome the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan) to his new position? I am sure that he is indeed a pivot. In the spirit of his congratulations to the Leader of the House on her change of heart on the freedom of information, I also thank him for the change of spirit in the Conservative party from the position adopted in respect of the former Conservative Chief Whip's private member's Bill only a couple of years ago—or even the position last Monday, actually.
	I ask the Leader of the House to consider seriously the point made by the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton about a debate on the economy. When I last held my current position, I regularly asked why there were no debates in Government time on the two conflicts in which we were engaged, which were the subject of many statements, but few debates. We have now had debates on those conflicts, but we have not had debates on the economy in Government time. This is a serious issue. We have had statements that refer to mouth-wateringly large amounts of money that have been given to the banks regularly, but that is no substitute for a debate. Apart from anything else, we need to know where that money has gone and why it was not conditional. It seems to many of us that it was not so much capitalisation as capitulation to the banks. We need an urgent debate on the economy.
	The Leader of the House has announced that on Tuesday 3 February we will debate motions relating to the police grant and the local finance report. May I ask, as I have in previous years, for those two debates to be separated? It is unhelpful to Members who wish to raise matters about policing not to have the opportunity to engage directly with the Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing, and a similar point could be made about those who wish to discuss local authorities.
	Many district councils, like those in my constituency, will be concerned about the widening gap between the amount provided to support the free bus scheme and the amount that it actually costs. I have nothing against the free bus pass scheme, which is an excellent policy, but it is not being funded. South Somerset district council tells me that there is a gap of £567,000 this year, and that it will be £730,000 next year. That is a colossal hole in the revenue of a small district council, and we need to consider how to close it.
	I wish to mention the very serious matter that was raised by the hon. Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) on a point of order yesterday, column 753 of  Hansard. He told the House that there was evidence of a calculated, pre-meditated conspiracy to subvert the procedures of the House and our ability to scrutinise Ministers in underwriting a contingent liability of more than £250,000 in respect of Sellafield, and to prevent Members from challenging it. That seems an egregious abuse of the House and its procedures. You, Mr. Speaker, gave an answer to the point of order, but I now ask the Leader of the House to undertake a proper investigation, report back to the House and make a statement. We simply cannot have the financial scrutiny afforded to Members diverted by Ministers in such a way.
	Finally, may we have a debate on the Government's concept of social mobility? I have in my hand the Government's response to the report of the Select Committee on Justice on the appointment of lords lieutenant. The Government congratulate themselves on the progress that they have made, stating:
	"However, over the last thirty years the social diversity of the lieutenancy has widened considerably. For example, thirty years ago, 20 Lord-Lieutenants were peers and many were retired senior military officers. This year, out of a total of 55, only 7 are peers".
	Well, that is progress. May I suggest to the Leader of the House that if the slogan in the United States is "Yes we can", it appears that in this country it is "No we can't"?

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman makes a point about the economy. As I said to the shadow Leader of the House, we will ensure that there are opportunities every week to discuss the No. 1 priority and concern of all of us, which is helping the British economy through the difficult and uncharted waters caused by a global banking crisis.
	The hon. Gentleman asked for the debates on the motions relating to the police grant and local government to be separated. I shall consider that request and get back to him, and make any announcement in next Thursday's business statement.
	The hon. Gentleman raised the matter of Sellafield. We have just had Energy and Climate Change questions, and I do not know whether he sought to raise the matter, but I suggest that he take it up with DECC Ministers.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned the social mobility White Paper, and I thank him for his support for social mobility, which is something we should all be concerned about. In that context, he mentioned the lords lieutenant, and I shall certainly add them to the list of institutions that really need to sort themselves out and get themselves into the 21st century.

Rob Marris: May I make my annual plea to the Leader of the House that Government drivers coming on to the estate should be provided with a warm place to sit while waiting for Ministers, so that they do not have to sit in the car park outside Speaker's House in their hybrid, environmentally friendly cars, with the motors running to keep warm? Symbolism is important, and it is a pretty bad show. They need somewhere warm to sit.

Harriet Harman: I will raise that important point with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport and ask him to write to my hon. Friend, after having also consulted the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, as it is not just a matter of personal comfort but an environmental issue.

Patrick Mercer: The Leader of the House may well be aware of the increasingly serious disturbances that are occurring outside the Staythorpe power station in my constituency. That is not the only site where such disturbances are occurring. May we have a debate on the subject, perhaps entitled, in the Prime Minister's words, "British jobs for British workers"?

Harriet Harman: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman seeks a meeting with the relevant Secretary of State on that important issue for his constituency. I shall alert the Secretary of State that such a request might be forthcoming, and I think that that would be a good way for the hon. Gentleman to take the matter forward in the first instance.

Celia Barlow: Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the launch of the "Time to Change" campaign. It is intended to bring awareness of mental health issues and provide support for people with mental health problems. Many constituents with mental health problems have written to me about the Welfare Reform Bill, which is to be discussed next week. However, will my right hon. and learned Friend find time for a discussion of the wider problems that such people face and of how to raise awareness of them and create more sympathy?

Harriet Harman: I congratulate my hon. Friend on mentioning the "Time to Change" campaign, and, like her, I give it my backing. That is why we are taking measures in the equality Bill to strengthen the law and protect people from discrimination on the grounds of mental health problems, why this is a major issue for the Department of Health and why the Welfare Reform Bill will ensure that help is available to get people into work, irrespective of their disability. We will ensure that they are able to take up opportunities to work. I shall consider whether we should make the matter the subject of a general or a topical debate, because how we support those with mental health problems is very important.

George Young: Further to the question asked by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), is it not the case that the drivers sit in their cars with the engines running not because they have nowhere else to go but because Ministers complain about being driven home in cold cars?
	May I raise a point about topical debates? Next Thursday, we are to have a topical debate on Holocaust memorial day, which I welcome, but that inevitably erodes the time available to debate the subsequent business. Today, there is no topical debate and so no erosion of the business that we are shortly to debate. What criteria does the Leader of the House use to decide whether the business needs to be protected from a topical debate? Surely she is not saying that the debate to come today is more important than the debates to be held on the two following Thursdays.

Harriet Harman: Each day, and therefore each Thursday, I look at the business to try to ensure that we have the right amount of time to debate a number of competing issues. For example, I originally picked the Gaza debate last week as a topical debate, which would have lasted just an hour and a half. So many Members wanted to speak that I moved the armed services personnel debate and made the Gaza debate a whole day's debate. All such issues are important, and we try to make enough space for them. There will be a topical debate before the armed forces personnel debate, but that was always going to be the case even before it was moved. There will be further debates through the year on armed forces issues, whether they concern procurement or other matters.

Andrew MacKay: Can I put it to the Leader of the House that it is very important to have further urgent debates on the banking crisis? They should be led by the Prime Minister, not least because he has been criticising certain erstwhile bankers, particularly Fred Goodwin. That would give us an opportunity to ask the Prime Minister whether that is the same Fred Goodwin whom he knighted, lunched at Chequers and put on his international business advisory panel.

Harriet Harman: The right hon. Gentleman, like all hon. Members, has an opportunity to ask the Prime Minister questions every week at Prime Minister's Question Time. I do not think that there has been a single Prime Minister's Question Time when he has not answered questions on the subject and sought the opportunity to explain the action that we are taking to ensure that we give real help to businesses and to people who are worried about their jobs and their ability to get a mortgage. He explains that we are laying the basis for a sounder future for our economy. Our economy and the global economy will not always be in recession, and we need to ensure that we build for the future. That is why we are bringing forward capital infrastructure projects, instead of doing what the right hon. Gentleman's party is urging and cutting them.

Keith Vaz: Last December, in a press release, the Home Secretary told us that knife crime involving teenagers carrying knives had halved. Today, in another press release, which Sky News picked up, she informs us that the number of teenagers carrying knives has increased by 18 per cent. and that murders involving knives have increased by 10 per cent. Although the Home Secretary gave evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs on Tuesday and spoke in the House on the Policing and Crime Bill on Monday, she did not mention those statistics. In the words of the shadow Leader of the House, could my right hon. and learned Friend have a man-to-man chat with the Home Secretary to ascertain whether she could make a statement to the House? If we are to have a serious debate about crime and policing, we need proper statistics, which the House can scrutinise.

Harriet Harman: Of course statistics on crime are important. The Home Secretary has been holding discussions with the senior statisticians in her Department and the head of the independent National Statistics organisation. We want to ensure that we get the figures absolutely right so that we can be as clear and open with people as possible about an issue of great concern to everyone. Let me reassure my right hon. Friend—I hope that what I am about to say is not also a matter for statistical discussion: the British crime survey, which asks people whether they have been a victim of crime, year after year shows people reporting that they are less likely to be a victim of crime. That is important.

Mark Hunter: Hon. Members know that my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) has secured a Westminster Hall debate next Tuesday on the Government's response to the ombudsman's report on Equitable Life. Following the Government's announcement last week, and the continuing concern by many policyholders that the response has been weak and inadequate, does the Leader of the House agree that Government time should be found for a full debate, so that all hon. Members who have raised the issue repeatedly have the opportunity to ask questions, and to express their constituents' concerns?

Harriet Harman: The Chief Secretary to the Treasury made a statement to the House about Equitable Life and answered questions on it for an hour last week. It is an important issue; it is important that those who need compensation must get it as swiftly as possible. The hon. Gentleman could recommend the subject to his Front Benchers for an Opposition day debate.

Mike Gapes: May we have an early debate on community cohesion so that Members of all parties can emphasise that we are one nation and that we stand together, regardless of our faiths and backgrounds? In that context, may I draw my right hon. and learned Friend's attention to two matters? First, a Respect party man, Abdurahman Jafar, is misusing the name and money of the Government-funded organisation Redbridge against Islamophobia and Extremism for his Respect party political purposes—he is standing as a candidate in a by-election next week. Secondly, the Conservative candidate, Ikram Wahid, has distributed a leaflet in the same Valentines ward by-election. It is being delivered only to Muslim households and advances no reason for Muslims to vote for him apart from not splitting the vote of the Muslim community.

Harriet Harman: The points that my hon. Friend raises are of the utmost importance. We should all recognise that party political advantage must not and cannot be gained from hatred and anger that divides different communities. I will raise my hon. Friend's points with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. In difficult times, it is important that we all stand together and work together.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: One aspect of the Planning Act 2008 was a community cohesion fund to put money back into the local community. One of the first big infrastructure projects that will probably come under the Act is the Hinkley Point nuclear power station. Both district councils for the area are concerned that the Government have provided no guidelines on the matter. May we have a debate about how the Act will work in future—it is a long-term measure—to ascertain how the community projects will be administered, who will look after them, who will be on the boards and what their remits will be?

Harriet Harman: The Act develops even further an innovative approach of ensuring that local communities benefit from developments in their area. The approach is being developed in the Department for Communities and Local Government. Perhaps I may suggest that the hon. Gentleman assists with that by seeking a meeting with the Secretary of State. He could help to shape the blueprint by saying how he thinks it should work in his area to ensure that the local community has a big say in how it will benefit from a development that is nationally important but has a big local impact.

Gisela Stuart: May I ask the Leader of the House for a debate on the method whereby the Audit Commission arrives at the star rating for some council departments? Conservative-controlled Birmingham city council recently wasted £1 million on a mass eviction of a high-rise block of flats that never happened. A survey that I conducted in my constituency on repair services showed serious failings time and again, yet the Audit Commission has given the department a rating of two stars with excellent prospects. Surely something is wrong.

Harriet Harman: I think that the most important benchmarks against which local housing authorities can be judged are whether they deliver for their tenants—my hon. Friend gives an example of a local authority doing the opposite—and whether they spend public money wisely; again, from what my hon. Friend says, it sounds as though the council is doing the opposite. Perhaps she could take the opportunity in the debate on Tuesday week about local government finance to raise that point. It is sad if her local authority is behaving in that way.

Julian Lewis: May we have an in-depth statement from the Secretary of State for Justice on sentencing policy in the light of the horrific case of the multiple rape of a 15-year-old girl with the mental age of eight or nine by up to 10 assailants? Only four of those assailants would probably have been convicted—six had to be let go. One of those who would probably have been convicted was killed in a street brawl because he was out on bail—incredibly—after the multiple rape. The other three were sentenced to between nine and six years each for not only raping the poor young woman but dousing her with caustic soda in an attempt to cover the evidence. There are no mitigating factors, given the total contempt that they showed for their victim even during the court case. The Attorney-General is rightly considering whether the sentences should be increased, but surely we need a statement so that we know whether they are increased and whether such villains would be considered for release halfway through their sentences, which would make nonsense of imposing the sentences in the first place.

Harriet Harman: As ever, the hon. Gentleman makes an important set of points. When a sentence causes public outrage or sends out the wrong message about the criminal justice system's attitude to a particular offence, there is provision for the Attorney-General to consider the judgment and the sentence and decide whether to refer the case to the Court of Appeal. As the hon. Gentleman says, we are in that position—the Attorney-General is considering whether to refer the case to the Court of Appeal as an example of an unduly lenient sentence.
	On the wider point about sentencing policy, I suggest that the hon. Gentleman take the opportunity on Thursday 5 February to try to catch the Chair's eye in Westminster Hall in the debate on effective sentencing.

Barry Gardiner: Earlier this year, the Government refused to support a Bill which had cross-party support in the House and would have staunched the flow of illegal timber into the UK. Their cover for that refusal was that the EU would introduce proposals. After three years of prevarication, the EU has presented proposals which are without content—they are procedural only. They do not achieve the advantage of establishing a universal scheme for all 27 regimes in the EU. Will the Government now urgently discuss what national legislation can be introduced to stop the flow of illegal timber into the UK and ensure that pressure is put on the EU to get the matter right?

Harriet Harman: We already have rules on the importation of timber, but there is obviously a need to consider strengthening them. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that, although we will always seek to work with EU partners, there is never an excuse for waiting for them if we could be getting on with taking national action. We will always take national action on our own account, while at the same time pushing our European counterparts to go as far as we have gone. Perhaps this is something that I will raise with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe, as well as with Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Alistair Carmichael: May we have a debate on the impact of the ending of the UK opt-out from the working time directive for retained firefighters? Some 321 of the 391 fire stations in Scotland are staffed by part-time firefighters. A strict application of the directive would mean that they would often be left unable to provide the necessary cover, and the stark fact is that many of our more remote communities simply do not have the critical mass of population required to maintain a full-time service. Surely it is wrong that the law of unintended consequences should be allowed to leave some communities without effective fire cover in this way.

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman has made a detailed and complex point, although it is actually about the simple and important issue of providing adequate fire cover at all times for all communities, including isolated rural communities. Perhaps I could raise the matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and ask him to write to the hon. Gentleman, to see whether he can allay his concerns.

Phyllis Starkey: May we have an urgent debate on the current status of the EU-Israel trade agreement? The House has been repeatedly reassured—starting with William Waldegrave, a Minister in a previous Conservative Government—that a breach of the human rights clauses in the agreement could lead to the agreement's suspension. It is clear from the events in Gaza and from the suspension of the Arab parties in Israel that those human rights clauses have been breached. Parliament needs an opportunity to debate this matter, so that our Ministers can take it into account in their work in the European Council of Ministers.

Harriet Harman: I know that my hon. Friend has played a leading role in the quest for justice for the Palestinians, and that she has visited the region on many occasions. She will be aware that we had a full day's debate on this subject last week, and a statement from the Foreign Secretary earlier this week. I will be speaking to the Foreign Secretary to find out when he will next come to the House to report on this matter, because it is an issue of concern not only internationally but in this country, and I will bring my hon. Friend's points to his attention.

Pete Wishart: Yesterday, Ofcom produced its report on the future of public sector broadcasting in the United Kingdom. The report contained proposals to cut news services from Scotland, and to see the south of Scotland being served from Newcastle. May we have a proper debate in this House on the future of public service broadcasting, to ensure that we get the best possible service for all the nations of the UK?

Harriet Harman: We are grateful to Ofcom for its well-considered report. We are in no doubt about the importance of public service broadcasting, but we are also in no doubt that an important dimension of that is broadcasting from the different regions and from Wales and Scotland. This is a matter that the Government keep under close scrutiny. I take the spirit of the hon. Gentleman's point, and I will try to work out what to do about this.

David Drew: May I refer my right hon. and learned Friend back to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda) about yesterday's announcement that Gloucestershire county council has decided to obtain a site in my constituency to build an incinerator? This is an issue of probity, and I wonder whether she will look into it. The county council said that it was conducting a full-scale consultation on the options for waste, and that is why it took up the opportunity for a private finance initiative arrangement with DEFRA, although that does not seem to have happened. I hope that the Leader of the House will look into this key issue and allow us an opportunity to debate the matter.

Harriet Harman: Waste management is an important issue generally. I was going to say that the incinerator was a hot topic, but I shall not do so. It is a very important topic in my hon. Friend's constituency. I do not know whether he has had a chance to ask for a meeting with the relevant Secretary of State, but perhaps he should do that in the first instance. Perhaps I can talk to him later today, after the next debate, to discuss how he can take forward his concerns.

Tony Baldry: May we have a debate on access to mortgages? Borrowers are finding it almost impossible to access mortgage finance, and if they can, it is only after paying a very high deposit. The Halifax is now asking for a deposit of 40 per cent., which is pretty much impossible for many people, and the Council of Mortgage Lenders says that it expects mortgage finance to decline for some months to come. It is difficult to see how we are going to get the housing market and the house building and construction industries moving again until the whole question of mortgage finance is sorted out. The Government say that they have done certain things, but the mortgage lenders and the building societies just do not seem to be acting.

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there has been a big fall in capacity in the mortgage market, which has come from the collapse of banks in Iceland, in Ireland and internationally. A lot of our mortgage market was already dependent on loans and mortgages that came from abroad, in what is a global financial market. He will also know that the mortgage companies and banks in this country depend on loans from other banks abroad, and that inter-bank lending has, to a degree, frozen up. This is a matter of working nationally to recapitalise the banks and put them in a position where we can expect them to lend again, and of working with our international counterparts to ensure that there is confidence across the banking system internationally. I agree with the hon. Gentleman's concern about the lack of mortgage finance going into housing, and about the effect of that on construction, which is absolutely evident. This is a top priority, and if he has any further suggestions that are properly backed with funds and thought out, we will obviously consider them.

Robert Flello: May we have a debate on the use of statutory consultation in the Building Schools for the Future programme, given that councils such as Stoke-on-Trent city council take no notice whatever of the outcome of consultations or, sadly, of people's opinions?

Harriet Harman: I am sure that we all strongly back the Building Schools for the Future programme, and it is obviously important to get the consultation right, to ensure that the massive capital investment that is going into schools, which we all support, goes to the right place. I suggest that my hon. Friend meets the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

Bob Spink: May we have a debate on Warm Front? It is an excellent scheme, but it could be greatly improved. Some of the quotations that people are now receiving are outrageously high. The number of people in Essex who are having to pay a top-up has increased from 304 to 1,429 over the past three years. Those very vulnerable people are now having to pay an average of £640 per top-up for work that could be done by local contractors at half the price. May we have a debate on that?

Harriet Harman: Energy prices have recently fallen, and that is very welcome, but they are still higher than they were 12 months ago. That is a serious concern for many people. Energy conservation is also an important environmental issue, because of carbon emissions. We have had a topical debate on the cost of energy, environmental protection, insulation and the Warm Front scheme, but I will look for a further opportunity as these issues are very important to households up and down the country and, no doubt, in the hon. Gentleman's constituency.

David Taylor: May we have a debate on the Welfare of Animals (Slaughter or Killing) Regulations 1995? I tabled early-day motion 510 a couple of days ago.
	 [ That this House recalls  the Farm Animal Welfare Council' s recommendation in 2003 which called for the repeal of the exemption from stunning prior to slaughter for animals killed by Moslem Halal and Jewish Shechita methods; notes that these exemptions rema in; further recalls the Council' s scientific evidence showing that sheep become insensible within five to seven seconds of the incision whilst adult cattle may take between 22 and 40 seconds, and calves may take up to two minutes to become insensible; abhors all forms of racism and religious intolerance; proposes that the stunning of an animal post-cut addresses animal welfare concerns whilst remaining compliant with the theological tenets upon which halal and kosher are based; supports the existing use of pre-stunning in the slaugh t er of over 90 per cent. of animals killed in the UK for halal meat; observes that bans on slaughter without pre-stunning in Norway, Sweden and New Zealand have been in place for over five years without harming religious freedom or community relations in those countries; and calls on the Government to work actively and constructively in co-operation with the Muslim and Jewish communities in the UK to address the animal welfare implications of all religious slaughter and to amend the Welfare of Animals (Slaughter or Killing) Regulations 1995 accordingly. ]
	The motion draws attention to the well-argued and scientifically validated report of the Farm Animal Welfare Council, produced back in 2003, which urged the repeal of the exemption from pre-stunning before slaughter of animals destined to be used as halal and kosher food. Will the Government open up discussions with the Muslim and Jewish communities to see how we can make progress on this affront to animal welfare which, among other things, fires racism and religious intolerance among some communities?

Harriet Harman: Perhaps that could be the subject of a Westminster Hall debate in which my hon. Friend could set out his suggestions about how to build on and take further the work that we have already done on this.

Jo Swinson: The reputation of our politics has suffered a severe blow this week as a result of the Government's antics in trying to hide MPs' expenses. I thank the Leader of the House for eventually withdrawing the order in response to protests from tens of thousands of people across the country as well as many Members of this House. Can she confirm that this shameful attempt to exempt MPs from freedom of information legislation has been dropped not just for today, but for good?

Harriet Harman: There is going to be a full debate on these issues straight after business questions. I think that what really causes a blow to the reputation of all Members is when any individual Member abuses the House allowances to line their own pockets. That is what undermines the reputation of the House, which is why we are bringing forward tougher rules, a more robust audit and more transparency.
	The hon. Lady's party has been consistent in arguing, as we did, for a Freedom of Information Act, which we actually brought in, and her Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), was quite right to criticise the Johnny-come-latelies in the Tory party who never did freedom of information when they were in government. As I say, at least the Liberals have been consistent and I would say to the hon. Lady that it is right for her, along with the rest of her party, to continue to call for greater transparency, but it is also very important not to get into a party political Dutch auction as to who can do most to besmirch the reputation of MPs.

John Bercow: Could we please have a debate in Government time on the Floor of the House on the continuing crisis in Darfur and western Sudan? Given that aerial bombing, mass shooting, widespread rape and the chaining together and burning alive of people—to give but four examples—have been recurrent facts of life in the region for well over five years, is it not high time that this House debated how the British Government, working in concert with President Obama and the international community, can secure the full 26,000 UN-African Union troop deployment to the region—before the genocide of Darfurians has been completed?

Harriet Harman: As the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary acknowledged, the attention of the international community has rightly been focused on the terrible ordeal, death and devastation happening in Gaza. At the same time, however, the situation in Zimbabwe is deteriorating and things remains dire in the Congo, while the circumstances are still terrible in Darfur. I am looking for an early opportunity for the House to debate Darfur, Congo and Zimbabwe. We cannot forget the role that this country and the international community must play. I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the written ministerial statement issued today by the Foreign Secretary, which talks about developing relations with China and making sure that we influence that country to play its role in the international community. It will be very important if we can make sure that China plays its part in helping to end the struggle and strife in Africa.

Philip Davies: May I reiterate the calls for an early debate on Ofcom's public service broadcasting review? Given that the BBC has a never-ending guaranteed increase in its income and given that it is still happy to pay Jonathan Ross £6 million a year, surely the time has come to top-slice the income going to the BBC from the licence fee and give it to other broadcasters whose income is going down and down, which is totally unsustainable. May we have an early debate so that we can understand the Government's thinking on that important issue and so that the Government can understand the views of hon. Members?

Harriet Harman: A Government paper on digital Britain will deal with a number of those issues. It seems to me that the questions of public service broadcasting, digitalisation, regional news, Channel 4 and the BBC might well be grouped together in order to provide an opportunity to debate them.

Peter Bone: This week, Mr. John Black, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said of the new EU working time directive that it was "an impending disaster" that would "devastate" medical training and lead to "dangerous" lapses in patient care. He went on to say that some hospitals and some hospital units will close. May we have a statement next week from the Secretary of State for Health on the Government's position in relation to the directive?

Harriet Harman: I will bring the hon. Gentleman's question to the attention of the Secretary of State for Health. I would say, however, that what certainly caused dangerous lapses in patient care was junior doctors being absolutely knackered from not having any sleep. We have increased the number of doctors and nurses and the number of doctors in training, but we also need to ensure not only that they build up the necessary expertise over the course of their training, but that they have a reasonable working life. That applies to dentists, as well.

Point of Order

Daniel Kawczynski: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank you very much indeed for the statement you made regarding the police coming into my office yesterday. I was notified of their being in my office while I was in the Chamber speaking in an Opposition debate. My junior members of staff and researchers felt under a certain duress to hand over documents. I am extremely grateful, Mr. Speaker, for your saying that in future, even if it does not involve parliamentary privilege, the Serjeant at Arms should first be told if a police officer wishes to enter the office of a Member of Parliament.

Mr. Speaker: I thank the hon. Gentleman, but he must understand that things are sometimes done in good faith—and the approach made by the police officer to the hon. Gentleman's staff was done in good faith. Other hon. Members have been put in a dangerous situation because of the particular investigation that is going on. I would ask that before hon. Members rush to points of order and make statements that can reflect badly on professional people who are doing a decent job of work, it would be better for them just to sit and wait for a while and get the facts together. That would have been the best thing, and I think that the hon. Gentleman's approach would have been different if he had given himself a breather and thought about what was going on.

Business of the House

Ordered,
	That, at this day's sitting, the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the Motions in the name of Ms Harriet Harman relating to Payments to hon. Members (Publication Scheme), Members' Allowances (Green Book), Members' Allowances (Audit and Assurance) and Committee on Members' Allowances not later than 5 pm; in each case such Questions shall include the Questions on any Amendments selected by the Speaker which may then be moved; proceedings may continue, though opposed, after the moment of interruption; and Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply.— (Chris Bryant .)

Mr. Speaker: Before I call the Leader of the House to move motion No. 2, I advise the House that all four motions are to be debated together.

Members' Payments and Allowances

Harriet Harman: I beg to move motion 2— Payments to Hon. Members (Publication Scheme) —
	(1) That, subject to the provisions of paragraph (2) below, for the purpose of the publication scheme adopted and maintained by the House under section 19 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, such information about payments made to, or on behalf of, hon. Members which is already published routinely in accordance with the scheme shall continue to be published;
	(2) In addition, information relating to Members' expenditure from the beginning of the current Parliament shall be published in relation to each financial year, to the extent that such information is separately identifiable, under the following categories:
	(a) Administrative and Office Expenditure:
	(i) accommodation costs for offices, surgeries, etc;
	(ii) office equipment and supplies;
	(iii) telephones and other telecommunications;
	(iv) professional fees and charges;
	(v) agency and other staff costs;
	(vi) travel costs;
	(vii) utilities;
	(b) Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure:
	(i) mortgage interest;
	(ii) rent;
	(iii) hotel costs;
	(iv) council tax;
	(v) fixtures, fittings and furnishings;
	(vi) subsistence;
	(vii) other household costs, including service charges, utilities, telecommunications, maintenance and repairs;
	(c) Communications Expenditure:
	(i) websites;
	(ii) reports and surveys;
	(iii) delivery charges, postage and stationery;
	(iv) advertising;
	(v) equipment;
	(d) Staffing Expenditure;
	(e) Travel Expenditure in relation to travel by Members:
	(i) car, including third party vehicle rental and mileage;
	(ii) rail;
	(iii) air;
	(iv) other UK and European travel;
	(f) Resettlement Grant;
	(g) Winding-up Expenditure;
	(3) The Committee on Members' Allowances shall keep the categories listed in paragraph (2) above under review and may modify them from time to time as the committee may think necessary or desirable in the interests of clarity, consistency, accountability and effective administration, and conformity with current circumstances.

Mr. Speaker: With this we shall discuss the following:
	Motion 3 —Members' Allowances (Green Book)—
	That this House approves the Guide to Members' Allowances (the Green Book), published as Annex 1 to the First Report of the House of Commons Members Estimate Committee (House of Commons Paper No. 142) and endorses the Principles set out in Part 1 of the Green Book as the basis for all claims made by Members;
	That the rules set out in the Green Book shall govern all expenditure on Members' allowances with respect to all claims for expenditure arising on or after 1 April 2009;
	That the Members Estimate Committee shall carry out a review of the provisions of the resolutions of this House relating to such expenditure, make such modifications to them as are necessary to ensure that they are consistent with the provisions in the Green Book, and report to the House; and
	That this House thanks Ms Kay Carberry CBE, nominated by the Trades Union Congress, and Mr Keith Bradford, nominated by the Confederation of British Industry, for having acted as the Speaker's external appointees to the Advisory Panel on Members' Allowances.
	Motion 4 —Members' Allowances (Audit and Assurance)—
	That this House approves the arrangements for the audit and assurance of Members' allowances set out in the report of the Members Estimate Audit Committee to the House of Commons Members Estimate Committee, published as Annex 3 to the First Report of the House of Commons Members Estimate Committee (House of Commons Paper No. 142).
	Motion 5 —Committee on Members' Allowances—
	That the following new Standing Order and amendments to the Standing Orders and Resolutions of the House be made:
	 A. New Standing Order 
	(1) There shall be a select committee, called the Committee on Members' Allowances,
	(a) to advise the House of Commons Members Estimate Committee on the discharge of its functions; and
	(b) to advise the Speaker, the Members Estimate Committee and the Leader of the House on the potential development of the arrangements made by or under the Resolutions in force from time to time regarding Members' allowances &c;
	(2) The committee shall consist of eight members;
	(3) Unless the House otherwise orders, each Member nominated to the committee shall continue to be a member of it for the remainder of the Parliament;
	(4) The committee shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to appoint specialist advisers and to report from time to time.
	 B. Amendment to Standing Order No. 152D 
	In Standing Order No. 152D, leave out lines 23 to 25;
	 C. Amendment to the Resolution of the House of 5 July 2001: 
	 Members' Allowances, Insurance &c. 
	Paragraph (5) of the Resolution of the House of 5 July 2001 relating to Members' Allowances, Insurance &c. shall cease to have effect.

Harriet Harman: I first want to set out the basis on which we approach this issue. I want this debate to proceed not as a Dutch auction of which party can do most to besmirch the reputation of MPs. I am not going to do that, because it would be wrong. We are public servants committed to our public duties and that is how we should approach this debate.
	There should be proper resources to enable MPs to carry out our work, and we need to be sure that those allowances are not abused and that no MP uses them to line their own pockets. When that happens, as it did so disgracefully in the case of one particular Member last year, it is not only the public purse that suffers. What suffers is the reputation of this whole House and of every single Member who works hard and abides by the rules. It is to take further steps to prevent the possibility of that abuse that I bring these motions to the House today, so that the public and the whole House can rest assured that public money is properly spent.

David Kidney: For 11 years I have been conscientiously filling in expenses claims forms, attaching copies of invoices and taking very seriously the words on the certificates that I sign, which read:
	"I confirm that the payments requested are in respect of costs incurred wholly, exclusively and necessarily in the performance of my Parliamentary duties."
	I was therefore shocked to hear the police explain last year that there would be no prosecution of an hon. Member caught fiddling his expenses because the rules of this House were—they felt—not clear enough. Can my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that the legal advice that she has states that no such excuse will be given by the police in future, and that someone who fiddles his or her expenses with dishonest intent will be prosecuted?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend has made an extremely important point. One of our aims in introducing the new Green Book, which is the subject of the first motion, is to ensure that the rules are absolutely clear and detailed, and that the required evidence is supplied before payments are made. That will apply whether the amounts concerned represent reimbursement for items bought or, more important, payment of staff. Staff will not be paid unless there is a signed contract of employment and a job description, so that no one can say afterwards, "Oh, yes, actually they were doing that job, but I did not have any evidence because I did not need any evidence." It is precisely to protect hard-working, law-abiding, conscientious public servants such as my hon. Friend, who are stained by those who abuse the rules, that we are introducing the tougher rules in the Green Book today.
	I thank the Members Estimate Committee and the officers and staff of the House of Commons Commission for their contribution to the work that lies behind the motions that we are debating. I should not have been able to present the motions to the House without their advice, expertise and many hours of meetings and work since last December, when I first outlined to the Members Estimate Committee the approach that I am taking today.
	When I became a Member of Parliament in the 1980s, there were three major problems, which have been addressed bit by bit over the years. First, the resources for our offices were wholly inadequate. That has been addressed over the years, and rightly so. Last year my office handled 6,300 individual constituents' cases. Each letter, e-mail, phone call or surgery visit was handled within, on average, 10 working days. My constituents have a right to expect us to have the resources to do the job for which we are elected.
	The second problem was that the rules governing payment of the claims of Members of Parliament were—as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney)—loose and unclear, giving scope for uncertainty as a result of which abuse could take place. The third problem was that the public were given no information at all about who claimed how much and for what. The rules were published, but the outcome of those rules was not.
	Over the years, we have increased the resources needed to enable us to do the work that our constituents expect. We have begun to publish information about Members' allowances annually, and have broken it down into 14 categories. However, we need to do more. There has been concern about three issues, which we sought to address through the work that we did in July last year and that we seek to address again today. We need to address the problem that the rules are not clear enough; we need to address the problem that audit is not robust enough; and we need to address the problem that not enough information is published. The propositions that we have put before the House today address each of those problems.
	I approach this issue in the belief that the public are entitled to be confident that the public money that is being paid out is being paid out on the basis of a clear and reasonable set of rules, that they should be confident that those rules are properly enforced and that money is not paid out other than within them, and that the public should be able to know in respect of every Member—not just some—every year, as a matter of routine, how much has been paid in allowances and for what.
	In respect of the first point on the need for clear rules, we submit the new Green Book to the House for its approval. Let me take this opportunity to thank the members of the Members Estimate Committee, the members of the Advisory Panel on Members' Allowances—including its two independent members—and the many hon. Members who have contributed to the new Green Book. I also thank the Comptroller and Auditor General for specifying the level of evidence that is necessary for us to be confident that the rules are indeed clear, and can form the foundation for a robust audit. If we pass the motion endorsing the new Green Book, we shall have a clear set of reasonable rules for the payment of allowances.
	The second issue is the proper enforcement of the rules. It requires robust audit, and that is the subject of a motion that will provide for what is described as "full scope" audit, on the same basis that applies to other public bodies. This will be the first occasion on which the House has been subject to "full scope" audit.
	The House authorities will—as they do now—check each claim before payment is made, but that work will additionally be subject to the scrutiny of a new internal unit, the operational assurance unit. There will also be supervision by the National Audit Office. That scrutiny will consist of examining not just the claim form that the Member has signed, but the evidence submitted with that claim—for example, invoices, receipts, statements, or any other documentary evidence that supports the evidence of the transaction. The NAO will be in a position to carry out the "full scope" audit because, as well as clear rules in the Green Book, there will be a requirement for no claim save those under £25 to be met unless it is submitted with a receipt or other evidence confirming the transaction.
	I thank the Members Estimate Audit Committee, including its four independent members and, in particular, its Chair, the former shadow Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May). This is not glamorous work, but it is very important and the right hon. Lady's report contains the proposals for the robust and independent audit for which the motion seeks the House's support.

Kate Hoey: Does my right hon. and learned Friend now believe, on reflection, that it was not correct for anyone to try to secure an exemption from the Freedom of Information Act? Will she give a commitment that, while she is Leader of the House, no attempt will be made by Members of Parliament who passed the legislation on freedom of information to exempt themselves?

Harriet Harman: I thought that that point might be raised, and I am about to deal with it.

Clive Betts: As a member of the Members Estimate Audit Committee, I want to make one thing absolutely clear, given comment in the media about the £25 threshold. That threshold has the full support of the National Audit Office and the independent members of the Members Estimate Audit Committee, and the NAO has confirmed its belief that it is a proper and proportionate figure that allows it to make a full and comprehensive estimate, to its satisfaction, of the allowances that we claim.

Harriet Harman: I thank my hon. Friend for his work on the Members Estimate Audit Committee. As I have said, it is not glamorous work—it does not involve members of the Committee being carried through the streets of Sheffield to be thanked—but it is very important work, and the Committee has produced a substantial report.
	My hon. Friend is entirely right. The National Audit Office has said that as 99 per cent. of the amount paid in allowances is paid in response to claims for more than £25, only 1 per cent. of claims will be submitted without receipts. That means that 99 per cent. of claims can be subject to a full audit with the full documentary evidence behind it, which is normal auditing practice.

Tony Wright: It is easy to become confused about all the various bodies involved in this process. As my right hon. and learned Friend says, it is good and right and true that there is an independent element in the Members Estimate Audit Committee, but there is no such element in the Members Estimate Committee, nor will there be in the new Committee of the House whose establishment is proposed. The body that did advise on allowances and did have an independent element—the Advisory Panel on Members' Allowances—is to be abolished. If we are to secure confidence in the system, is it not important for us to ensure that there is a robust independent element in the procedures according to which we set the allowances?

Harriet Harman: It is right that there should be a robust independent element, and the "full scope" NAO audit should provide bottom-line confidence in, and reassurance on, that. It has been involved in our deliberations on, and construction of, the rules that we have drawn up with the independent advisers on APMA. If we pass the motion, the NAO will henceforth be permanently involved in scrutinising the allowances and making sure they are paid out only in accordance with these rules.
	If we make APMA a Committee of this House, only Members of this House will be able to be members of that Committee; external, independent people will not be able to be full members of the Committee. The proposal is that those who have served so well as independent members of APMA will be advisers to the Committee on Members' Allowances. I can say that the CAM will have no Government Members on it. APMA had members of the Government on it, but the CAM will not have a Government Member on it, and nor will it have a Government majority—it will not be constructed as Select and Standing Committees are, with a Government majority. Therefore, I think we have the right level of independent input and the right reassurances for the future.

Alan Duncan: May I add to what the Leader of the House has said in response to the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright)? Is it not also the case that whereas the previous Committee met in private and gave private advice, the great advance in what is proposed here is that this Committee will be open, so it will be able to take advice openly and everything it does will be subject to open scrutiny? Does she also agree that it will therefore have a much stronger and more open influence than the closed Committee that used to exist?

Harriet Harman: I absolutely agree with those points. In addition, the new Committee will be able to require evidence to be brought to it and to publish reports. I take nothing away from the work of APMA in the past; since it was set up in 2001, it has done a very important job. However, the next stage is to move it on to a full footing as a Committee of the House. I will deal with this matter a little later in my speech.
	The third principle is that, over and above the clear rules and robust audit, the public should know who is spending, how much and on what. The motion before the House would effect a publication scheme that would put into the public domain more information than has hitherto been published, and in a form that is consistent year on year and comprehensible to the public. Until now, we have published information about expenses broken down into 14 categories. This motion would lead to publishing information in greater detail and in 26 categories. For example, the House authorities currently publish a single figure for "office running costs", but under the proposed publication scheme, the House authorities will publish the information broken down into accommodation for offices and surgeries, "office equipment and supplies", phones, "professional fees and charges", "agency and other staff costs", travel costs and utilities. So the single figure would be broken down into seven detailed categories for every Member for every year.

Natascha Engel: Can the Leader of the House reassure me that if, in line with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, any member of the public requests a detailed breakdown of the claims a Member makes against the public purse in any of these 26 categories, there will be full disclosure and people will have full access to that information?

Harriet Harman: The House authorities will comply with all the requests that are before them under the Freedom of Information Act—I think some 180 are in the pipeline—in the same way as they complied with the High Court judgment in respect of freedom of information requests for all the receipts of 14 Members.

Bob Spink: Will the Leader of the House confirm that if we can show during this debate that a slightly different breakdown—and, perhaps, a more detailed breakdown, splitting one or two of these subjects—would provide even greater transparency and end confusion to the public, she will accept such an amendment?

Harriet Harman: I am aware that the hon. Gentleman tabled an amendment, which was not selected, that breaks down one of the categories by separating "service charges" from
	"utilities, telecommunications, maintenance and repairs".
	That makes sense, and it will be possible to review the categories from time to time. If the hon. Gentleman's amendment had been selected, we would not have opposed it—we would have accepted it—and then that change to the categories would have been made. However, we should not change the categories too often, because it is important for the public to be able to see year by year how things change, and if we change the categories, they will not be able to see that broad picture. Therefore, because the hon. Gentleman's perfectly sensible amendment was not selected, we will go forward—with, I hope, the support of the House—with the 26 categories that we have listed in the motion.

David Winnick: Like everyone else I am sure, I am very pleased there will be greater transparency, but does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that had we been foolish enough to have continued with the earlier attempt to exempt ourselves from the freedom of information legislation, there would inevitably have been a feeling that we were trying to hide various amounts? That would have undermined all the good work that is rightly being done to let the public know all the necessary information. Bearing in mind last year's attempt to exempt ourselves completely from the freedom of information legislation—the very law we passed for other people—can my right hon. and learned Friend make it clear that there will be no attempt at any stage in the future to exempt ourselves from that legislation?

Harriet Harman: The private Member's Bill to which my hon. Friend refers sought to remove the obligations of the Freedom of Information Act from the House authorities in respect of Members' allowances, but it did not put anything in its place. Our approach would have been to introduce a publication scheme that would have provided the public with the information they need about Members, and therefore it could have taken the place of those provisions in the Freedom of Information Act. For reasons I will come to later in my speech, we are not bringing that forward. What I am proposing to the House is the four motions before us today. I am not proposing the Freedom of Information Act statutory instrument; I am proposing the new Green Book, the audit and assurance, the publication scheme and the new Committee of the House.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Harriet Harman: I am perfectly happy to debate something we are not bringing forward, but I am trying to make progress in debating what we are bringing forward, and I will deal with some further points about the SI in a moment.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Harriet Harman: I will give way to the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey), who is a fellow member of the Commission.

Nick Harvey: I was interested by the answer the Leader of the House gave to the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) that if freedom of information requests seek to go further than her 26-category scheme, the House will accede to those requests. The House announced last July after the High Court ruling that we would publish down to receipt level. Today, the right hon. and learned Lady is introducing a 26-category scheme. If we are to be compelled to answer queries going down to receipt level in the way she has described, will we not in fact be leaving randomly in the hands of freedom of information applicants the decision as to which Members' information comes out to receipt level and which Members' information simply comes down to a category level? Has not this House previously always taken the view that the rule for one is the rule for all?

Harriet Harman: If, as I hope, we pass this motion on the publication scheme, every year the public will be able to see this information on every Member without there being any freedom of information request. As a matter of routine, information on what each Member has actually spent in any year will be brought forward and published, and broken down into 26 detailed categories.
	There is also a question to do with Freedom of Information Act requests—both those that have already been made and have not yet been complied with and those that might be made in the future. The House authorities, the data holders, will decide, according to the law as it stands, what their obligations are in responding to those requests for information.

David Winnick: According to the law.

Harriet Harman: Precisely so. The hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) is a long-standing member of the Members Estimate Committee, to which I pay tribute. He rightly points out that the MEC has said that if it is fair for information to be given out in respect of one Member because somebody has requested it, the same information should be given out in respect of every Member. It is my understanding that nobody need worry that any Member will be left out, because the 180 Freedom of Information Act requests in the pipeline cover every Member of the House. We will decide the publication scheme and the House authorities will implement it. It is important that the public are able to see the information according to these categories.
	The other aspect is the request for receipts down to individual receipt level. I understand that 1.2 million such receipts have been the subject of Freedom of Information Act requests. The House authorities have been scanning the receipts since last summer, so that they can be disclosed. The scanning—a massive task—has not yet been completed, but it will be soon. Of course, the receipts have to be redacted before they are published. Before anybody thinks that there is any sort of cover up in relation to the redaction—redaction means crossing out things with a black felt tip pen or with the electronic equivalent—may I point out that the receipts contain information that it would not be right to put into the public domain? For example, an hon. Member might buy a ream of paper from a stationer's and at the same time purchase a Valentine's card. Of course they would pay for that themselves, but the receipt showing "purchased: one lurid Valentine's card" should not be put into the public domain. The claim for a ream of paper on the allowances, however, should be put into the public domain. Information about things that Members have paid for themselves must be crossed out on these receipts.
	Indeed, we identified that need when we saw the claims made by the hon. Member for North Devon. The House authorities gave us an example, from which we could see where he shopped—he is a man of regular habits—and how he paid, and at what time and on what day. That information need not be put into the public domain—unless one wants to meet him at one of his regular shopping venues. Intriguingly, we were also able to learn what shampoo and hair conditioner he buys; clearly he was not claiming those purchases on the parliamentary allowance, but they caught my eye when I saw the unredacted receipts. The serious point is that the House authorities have been hard at work making sure that the public are given the information to which they are entitled under the freedom of information provisions, but we must not tip into the public domain a load of personal and private information in respect of which no claim has been made.

Robert Flello: There is an even more serious point to make. Earlier, we heard a statement from Mr. Speaker about an investigation involving an hon. Member and some threats against hon. Members. If receipts contained Members' London addresses, releasing that information would pose a great threat to them. Although the light-hearted points are good ones, the serious point is that some information could compromise hon. Members' safety and security.

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend makes a very important point, which has also been an issue in respect of the redaction of information on receipts. This House, at the initiative of the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), passed a freedom of information statutory instrument to remove from the disclosure anything that could reveal the addresses of Members. For example, in respect of invoices or mortgage statements containing the address of the premises, we carved a bit out of the Freedom of Information Act because we did not want to put Members' addresses into the public domain. That statutory instrument also dealt with Members' regular travel plans; the question of regular shopping—shopping at the same time at a particular shop—would also arise in this regard. We must put into the public domain information that is required by law, but that is not as easy a job as it might seem, given that we are talking about 1.2 million receipts.

Andrew MacKinlay: rose—

Harriet Harman: I shall give way to my hon. Friend, who usually sits to my right. I do not know whether there is some significance to his sitting somewhere else.

Chris Bryant: It is not his main residence.

Andrew MacKinlay: I invite the Leader of the House to deal with the following point. We also have obligations to third parties under the Data Protection Act 1998. Surely that is the most important thing, because the documentation could contain the telephone numbers and details of other people. I am talking not about businesses, but other individuals. I would like her to deal with the Data Protection Act, because that is the other side of the same coin. We need adequate time to review the receipts, not on a disc, but on paper, and argue for any redactions that are necessary. I want an assurance on that, because I understand that the person who runs this was talking about the information being on a screen—that is not the way to deal with hundreds of bits of paper. We need the information on bits of paper so that we can go through things and redact. I hope that there is agreement on that.

Harriet Harman: My excellent deputy points out that the Bench on which my hon. Friend is sitting is not his main residence. There are issues to address in relation to the Data Protection Act and protecting information on third parties. He makes the point that although it might be evident to a Member what something might reveal, with the best will in the world and however professional they are, it might not be evident to the people doing the redacting and the scanning. That is why the Members Estimate Committee has agreed to set up, and the House authorities have set up, provision to ensure that once the 1.2 million receipts have been scanned, each Member will be notified and will be given an electronic version of their receipts going back to April 2004—that is a lot of receipts.
	Hon. Members will have to check this with the House authorities, but I understand that if a request for a hard copy is made, Members will be able to see one—the Clerk of the House nods in assent. That will enable them to go through things and say what information should be crossed out and what should be left in. When the scanning exercise has been finished and this information has been given to Members, they will be given a month to go through all their receipts dating back to 2004 to check each one before it goes into the public domain. People may think that a month is a long time and they may think that feet are being dragged, but that is not the case, because a lot of receipts are involved and Members have their work to get on with in the meantime. They have the business of this House and the business in their constituencies to attend to, so they need time to check the receipts, and a month has been settled on as the right period.

Stuart Bell: rose—

Harriet Harman: I shall give way to my hon. Friend, who is also a member of the House of Commons Commission and Chair of the Finance and Services Committee.

Stuart Bell: The Leader of the House says that 1.2 million bits of paper will be put into the machinery and will be published under the Freedom of Information Act. Will she confirm that the cost to the taxpayer of dealing with those 1.2 million documents is £1.2 million?

Harriet Harman: I think it is a bit more than that—I believe it is more like £2 million-odd. There is no doubt that it is an expensive exercise.

Martin Horwood: If the new regime that the Leader of the House is describing is to be as open as we want it to be, presumably there will be no reason to exempts MPs in future from freedom of information legislation. I think she has been asked twice about that, without giving a clear answer. Will she simply say that no future attempt will be made to exempt Members of Parliament from freedom of information legislation?

Harriet Harman: The House fully supported the freedom of information statutory instrument that we introduced last summer, and I am glad that no Minister at that point had made a grandiose commitment from the Dispatch Box never to provide any exemption; otherwise, we could not have introduced that statutory instrument providing an exemption for the sake of security, with which the House agreed.
	If I may, I want to discuss what I am introducing today. I am not introducing the statutory instrument on freedom of information, and I shall deal with that in my speech. If any hon. Member intends to ask that same question, perhaps they will desist, but I am happy to give way to hon. Members who want to ask a different question.

Alan Whitehead: I welcome the clear understanding that the Freedom of Information Act will be fully complied with in the release of material in the 26 categories. Does the Minister accept that that may require a further publication schedule and programme to ensure that redaction is consistent between hon. Members' releases of information, and that the issue is finalised with no further challenges to what has been put in the public domain and what has been redacted? All hon. Members must have an equal opportunity to release their material on the basis of a consistent programme of redaction, which should be based on a publications programme beyond the 26 categories that my right hon. and learned Friend said will be in the public domain?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend's point was the subject of his amendment—I examined it carefully—which was not selected. I know that other hon. Members supported it, but my understanding is that it is unnecessary because provisions are already in place on how the House authorities will go about the process of publication under the Freedom of Information Act in response to the requests that they already have. It may not be called a scheme with a capital "S", but a programme of work according to clear criteria has been undertaken since July, and will produce something like the book I have here, which is what Congress has. It is published quarterly, and includes matters such as maintenance of the water cooler and sending recorded delivery letters. If any hon. Members want to see what it is likely to look like, they can come to my office and read this book.

John Barrett: It was said that hon. Members would have a month to go through 1.2 million receipts. Will the Leader of the House assure us that when Members' feedback has gone back into the system, they will have an opportunity to check that the corrections have been made before the receipts go into the public domain? If a mistake is made the first time round, hon. Members should have the opportunity to check that it has been corrected before publications, especially for issues such as credit card numbers, telephone numbers and home addresses.

Harriet Harman: In the first instance, there will be an opportunity to raise mistakes with the House authorities, who will understand that something may have been evident to hon. Members and to people in their local area, but not to the House authorities or those working under contract to them. If there is a dispute about whether the House authorities were right to insist on not redacting, I think I am right that the next port of call is the Members Estimate Committee and, ultimately, the Speaker. I hope that there will be as much discussion and flexibility as possible, and I am sure that that is how the House authorities will want to deal with the matter.

Julian Lewis: Will the right hon. and learned Lady confirm that the High Court ruled that individual receipts should be released because it was not satisfied with the rigour of the auditing process in the House? Now that she is putting forward a more rigorous and independent auditing system, people are concerned about what will happen in future. Might it be unnecessary to go down to receipt level, with the costs and effort involved, if the Court, the information appeals tribunal and the Information Commissioner were satisfied that the auditing process was rigorous enough? It was upsetting the public that we would do something different from what other people in similar positions must do. Has the right hon. and learned Lady done any research into whether High Court judges and other senior people who take money from the public purse—for example, in the BBC—for allowances and who have good auditing procedures in place must reveal millions of individual receipts? If they do not, why should we have to do so once we have improved procedures in place?

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman captures the spirit of the High Court decision that in the absence of rules with sufficient clarity and of audit with the necessary independence, the balance of public interest lies in publication of information down to receipt level. If the House accepts the resolutions today, the legal position may change. The House must comply with its legal obligations, and having complied with past legal obligations, including information down to receipt level, the view may be taken that although we might not be under a legal obligation to provide that information in the future, we may as well do so as we have done it in the past. Such a decision would be over and above the legal obligations, if the view were taken that the legal obligations can be satisfied with 26 categories, and a strong Green Book and audit. Two decisions are involved—the legal decision, and the public policy decision on whether, having published receipts once, it is sensible to go back on that and not publish them in future.

David Heath: What the right hon. and learned Lady has just said is of great interest. Many of us believe that if the scheme and the audit proposals had been in place three years ago, the matter would not have gone to the tribunal and the High Court, and we would not have the unholy mess that we now have. However, the fact is that she is proposing a scheme of publication that falls short of that full disclosure that the High Court has determined is correct—[Hon. Members: "It does not."] I am sorry, but it falls short of the full disclosure that the High Court has determined must be the case under the existing scheme. Is she suggesting that that should be tested again through the Information Tribunal and the courts, or does she plan to introduce an alternative scheme of full disclosure to full receipt level? If she intends to leave the matter where it is, and if someone makes an application, whether that goes to the tribunal and what the decision is will be left to fate.

Harriet Harman: I shall make the position absolutely clear for the hon. Gentleman. Nothing in the resolutions alters the legal obligations on the House authorities in respect of freedom of information requests under the old regime. Nothing in the resolutions affects that. The hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) said that the court made its decision about the balance of public interest requiring full disclosure down to receipt level because of the lack of clear rules and the absence of audit, and asked whether there would be a requirement in future to produce receipts when the matter has been sorted out. What I said is that I think that, in its own right and irrespective of anything that the court might say or any FOI request that might be made, the regime that I am proposing to the House today—which has been the subject of discussion by the APMA and the Members Estimate Committee—is a good regime. But there remains the question of whether this regime will satisfy the obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. I contend that there is a good legal argument that it might do so, but we are not bound to do just the minimum that the law requires: we might think that, having revealed the receipts for past expenditure, it might not be appropriate to stop producing receipts even though the legal obligation has been superseded by the new motions that I have tabled.
	I have spoken for some 40 minutes, and I am anxious to answer hon. Members' questions, but I do not want to try the patience of the House. From all the meetings and discussions that I have had, I know that this speech could go on for 40 hours. Like the 1.2 million receipts, this is a marathon, not a sprint, but I do not want to deprive other hon. Members of the opportunity to speak. I urge hon. Members not to repeat questions that have been asked. If they are struggling to understand my answers, they can ask me after the debate, and I will try to be as helpful as I can.

Jo Swinson: Will the Leader of the House give way?

Harriet Harman: The hon. Lady asked a question on this issue in business questions, so I am cancelling her out on this occasion.

Nick Palmer: As a co-signatory of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead), I think that we are doing the right thing on this occasion. Up to now, the public perception has been, rightly or wrongly, that the House has had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, each step of the way. However, what the Leader of the House now proposes probably goes beyond our legal obligation because it says that if constituents are in doubt about the size of a particular cost, we are willing to go down to receipt level to satisfy them. That is the right thing to do, and we are right to go further than we are absolutely required to go by law. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on doing so.

Harriet Harman: I said that I did not want any more questions, but if they are like that one, I would like to encourage them. I thank my hon. Friend for his comment.
	The bottom line is that we will comply with our legal obligations both for the past and in the future. There has never been any doubt about that. In the past, we have put under one heading the costs of staying away from our main home. Under the publication scheme, that global figure will be broken down to mortgage interest, rent, hotel costs, council tax and so on. That will provide a clearer picture for our constituents.
	The fourth motion would turn the Advisory Panel on Members' Allowances, which has existed since July 2001, into a formal Committee of the House. We are grateful to the APMA for the work that it has done and it is time that it should be formally constituted. That would put the Committee on the same footing as a Select Committee in that it would be able to call for evidence and publish its own reports. Nothing in the motion—or in any other motion today—prejudices the role of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards or the very important work of the Committee on Standards and Privileges.
	As the Prime Minister, and then I, told the House yesterday, we have attempted to reach agreement on all these issues. We introduced a statutory instrument which would mean that these resolutions replaced the FOI provisions that apply to the House. The official Opposition said on Tuesday that they do not support the FOI statutory instrument so we have not moved it and I will seek further discussions with the Opposition, as I always do on all matters, and with other hon. Members. But it remains important that we pass these resolutions today. They provide for clearer rules, tougher audit and more transparency. I hope that at least on these resolutions, that is something on which we can all agree. I commend the motions to the House.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I remind the House that Mr. Speaker has not selected any of the amendments that were tabled, and I hope that hon. Members will respect that fact.

Alan Duncan: May I thank the Leader of the House for generously taking so many interventions and for the thoroughness with which she has treated this topic? That is appreciated on both sides of the House. May I also express my gratitude for her earlier comments about my dress sense, my watch, my cufflinks and, not least, my interest in oil? They are especially appreciated coming from such a gentle flower of the aristocracy who has so aggressively embraced the working class.
	Today will, I hope, represent a major step forward in everything that the House needs to do on the declaration of its expenses. The whole issue has given Parliament a wretchedly bad name for far too long, and there are deep wounds that need to be healed if we are to be seen as a sensible, honest, working institution by anyone in this country. We do not want to have a state of permanent war either across the Floor of the House or between this House and the press and public. Our reputation must be raised and we can achieve that only by being open and honest.
	Expenses have always given us a bad name, and I shall explain why. We must all accept that the starting point for everything that we must now do is that everything that we spend out of taxpayers' money should be open to anyone who wishes to inquire. Parliament has lagged behind the wish of the public to scrutinise this institution. We have done ourselves great damage by sticking too much to conventions and old habits, instead of accepting that the lack of the scrutiny that people demand is a running sore that must be addressed.
	Our systems, methods and rules are sometimes unfathomable, however honest and decent they might be, and that causes a lot of misunderstanding. Out of misunderstanding comes suspicion and then resentment. That is not healthy in any democracy. Sometimes, of course, some of the mischief is wilful, but we have to live with that. We also always face the danger that one culprit among us damns us all.
	We need to find a system that can overcome all those challenges and we need to accept that the problem has been brewing for decades. Some 20 years ago, the allowances that we needed were far smaller. Our public role—answering correspondence and travelling, for example—was much less of a burden. The whole issue of expenses was used as a surrogate mechanism for increasing our salaries without attracting public criticism. It is always difficult for any Government or Opposition to say that MPs should be paid more. Let us be brutally honest and admit that the housing allowance—the additional costs allowance—arose because no one dared to increase MPs' salaries and that was another way to do it. MPs were essentially told, "Here's a few extra thousand quid a year to pay for your second home, because that's what you need to be an MP, and you will get it automatically."
	The automaticity with which we were able to claim that allowance may have suited the time when it was first awarded, but it does not suit the modern age. If all of us can benefit from something approaching £20,000 for a second home—

Simon Hughes: Not all of us!

Alan Duncan: Of course not, if Members live in London. Perhaps only a second taxi.
	We now live in a world in which, if we receive such an allowance, we must accept that we have to account for every detail of any claim made. The origin of the allowances and the changing nature of our job have led to a complete and utter mess. It is only by degrees that we have addressed that mess in sufficient detail—and we have not done so quickly enough.
	It may well be that one day it will be sensible to abolish the second housing allowance and bolt it on to our salaries so that we will have to pay for our own homes— [ Interruption. ] There may be an argument that houses in London are more expensive, so we should all be paid the same, but that is a separate argument. The point is that no one at present—and rightly—would announce what would appear to be a quantum leap in our salary on the back of the amalgamation of an allowance with what we are paid. That is not on the cards at the moment, but we should all accept the origin of and possibly the ultimate solution to the very vexed question of the second home allowance.
	We have to declare, and it is right that we should do so, but on the back of the gradual steps that we have taken we have caused absolute chaos for ourselves, to the point where, unbeknown to any of us, what used to be called the Fees Office, which is now the Department of Resources, had a list of what it was acceptable to spend the money on so that we could check that we were buying a toaster that was not too expensive, or too ridiculous—one that was not gold-plated—and that became known as the John Lewis list. It was an absolute gift to journalists, which has ended up doing us harm but creating a lot of very interesting stories.
	The argument that was then created was for a serious and proper debate about the level of detail that we should be expected to reveal in the lists or receipts that we publish. I am sad to learn that if I were to send the Leader of the House a Valentine's card, the cost would not count as a proper parliamentary expense.

Andrew MacKinlay: She would not believe it.

Alan Duncan: The one I would pick might just give it away.
	The other vexed issue accompanying the development of our allowances has been the implementation of freedom of information legislation. We have witnessed a long, slow train crash between what we do and what the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires, which we have been unable so far to resolve. In the eyes of the public, that appears to be a requirement that we have always wanted to escape. The assumption of the Freedom of Information Act is that there should always be disclosure. However, the other side of the disclosure equation is that if such disclosure collides with data protection it may not be necessary. In the Freedom of Information Act, as it applies to this House or to anyone else, there is therefore always a permanent tension between openness and privacy. There are always exceptions in other fields on what is published. We can all accept that when there is a legitimate matter of security and the safety of the individual, and the revelation of certain details that could be taken wrongly and abused by other people, privacy is very important.
	The other side of the equation, which affects us uniquely, is the fact that when it comes to the need to reveal information we are at the top of the scrutiny pyramid. We are elected. We choose that, and through election we become permanently in the public gaze. Even High Court judges are not quite in the same category, nor even permanent secretaries, and certainly not middle-ranking— [ Interruption. ] I shall set the BBC to one side for the moment. Middle-ranking civil servants are certainly never expected to be in the public gaze and they are just that—civil servants. We must accept that we are the people who are most expected to come clean about how we spend the allowances that are granted to us. I think that we have been very slow to accept that that scrutiny is legitimate and that we are in an almost unique category.
	That brings us to the specific question, which can be boiled down to this: receipts or no receipts? How far should the system be allowed to drill down to what we have done, what detail can be insisted on and whether it is fair for all that to be revealed? Should it go down to the last single receipt for the toothbrush that one has bought in the local supermarket?
	The origin of that question, to which the Leader of the House and others have referred, lies in what the Information Commissioner ruled and in subsequent events. The Information Commissioner originally ruled that categories of spending would suffice. That was challenged and taken to the Information Tribunal. The tribunal ruled that the House of Commons—that is, us—should be required to reveal what we have spent right down to the level of receipts. Perhaps I am getting the history slightly wrong—I have been in this role only for a couple of days—but my understanding is that the House wanted fewer categories than the number originally proposed, but the High Court upheld the tribunal's decision and said that receipts were required.
	I understand that one of the reasons why the High Court upheld the Information Tribunal and not the commissioner was, as my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) said, that there was no apparent adequate regime in place that gave the Information Commissioner enough confidence that even the categories would be adequately compiled. There was insufficient scrutiny behind the scenes in the whole system, so much so that the tribunal said, "In the absence of that, publish the whole lot." That got us to where we were yesterday.
	The House authorities—the Committees and the Leader of the House—thought, "Well, we think that the Information Tribunal and the High Court are going a bit further than is really necessary, and so we will introduce a retrospective amendment to the Freedom of Information Act that will allow us not to have to publish receipts." It is clear from the events of yesterday that Opposition Members and the Leader of the Opposition felt very strongly that we made the law, that we were subject to the law, that the law applied to us and that the High Court had a case that said that that law must be upheld but that suddenly we—the lawmakers—wanted retrospectively as a House to exempt ourselves from the law that we had made. We can all accept that that just was not right. Whatever we want to do in the future, having made our bed we have to lie in it.
	That means that with all the scanning that has taken place, both the first and second times, those receipts will have to be published. From 2005 to 2009, the information will go right down to receipt level. We are looking to the future today, and the question is whether what is before us will suffice and whether it will satisfy the Information Commissioner and those who quite rightly demand freedom of information about us. My view is that we should still be subject to the freedom of information legislation. I shall come in a minute to what that might now mean.
	There is a lot of good sense in the motions—they are a good advance. There are 26 categories, and I have to say that one of them puts me in a slightly awkward position given what the Leader of the House said following the statement a moment ago— [ Interruption. ] Funnily enough, it is about oil. Under the category of utilities are listed electricity and gas. I can only take that as a personal attack, because it misses out oil. It might equally include wood, straw and biomass. I hope that some of the categories, which I know are not meant to be exhaustive, will not be applied in a way that is over-bureaucratic. The heading given is for heating, and the use of utilities for heating should be dealt with sensibly. I am sure that the Committee will consider that point and we will see as we go along whether the categories are adequate. There will need to be a little leeway so that the scheme is practical and so that it works. I hope that the Leader of the House and the House authorities will allow me to heat my constituency home in Rutland with oil.
	There is another good element to the motions that will change the whole climate of freedom of information. Through these motions, the House is properly introducing a thorough regime for audit and assurance. That point is crucial. There will be a full and proper external audit of what we do, carried out, I think, by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Each of us can expect to be fully audited at least once in a full Parliament and, if any habits or things seemed to stick out, I think that an hon. Member would be at risk of being individually scrutinised on another occasion, too. There is also an enhanced assurance scheme in the Department of Resources that can give clear guidance and allows for spot checks and much more rigorous scrutiny than before.
	One little vexed issue remains that can continue to be a bit of a gift to a journalist who wants to write a story: the £25 limit below which we do not need to offer a receipt—but that limit was advised by outside auditors and scrutineers. It is not something that all of us say that we must have because we want to keep a bit of flexibility so that we can keep the cash coming in on the sly. The limit is just a simple matter of efficiency, ensuring that the proper regime that we have put in place does not have a disproportionate cost attached. Basically, the rule now is that more or less everything will need a receipt and be subject to audit, and that hon. Members can claim only for expenses that qualify fully under the allowances that are in place.
	In addition, there is going to be a new Committee on Members' Allowances. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) asked whether that would be much of an improvement, but I repeat that I think that it will be. Because of private, cosy advice offered in secret behind closed doors, the Committee will be akin to a full Select Committee. It will meet and take evidence in public and, because it is a Select Committee, it will be made up of Members of the House, as the Leader of the House said. However, its proceedings will be so clear and transparent that the advice that it is given will also be open, and so the advice that it is likely to give to the House will, with any luck, be well founded, sensible and properly understood. The Committee will advise on what is going on, and on what should go on, in full public view. I think that that is a good step. Furthermore, there is the new Green Book which, as the Leader of the House said, is tighter, simpler and clearer. I think that all hon. Members will want it to be adopted.
	In conclusion, where does all that leave us now? The question remains: receipts or no receipts? That is the question that is still hanging, and it has to do with the level of specificity that must apply.

Julian Lewis: I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene before he answers his own question. May I make a suggestion to those on both Front Benches? One aspect that has not been brought up in either of the two opening speeches is the question of those people, often with a personal axe to grind, who will take a vexatious approach to what is revealed. Before we decide whether in the future we want to go further than the law requires and keep on issuing information down to receipt level—we have certainly had to do so in the past, but we may not in the future—would it not be sensible to see what happens? We can then take a view after we have released information down to receipt level in the past.
	I can give an example involving a political opponent of mine. He has already put in 15 FOI requests that affect me, and 11 of them have been aimed directly at me or my staff. As soon as one request is ruled out or shown to be baseless, this person puts in more requests. Should we not review how people behave in response to the new regime as it applies to receipts from the past before we decide what to do about receipts in the future?

Alan Duncan: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is very dogged in these matters and very assiduous in the way that he analyses them in such detail. Sometimes in British political life one can do the decent thing and always be taken advantage of. One of the challenges that we face is not to be done down by our sense of decency. We should have the highest standards of openness, but we also need some safeguards to ensure that we are not taken for suckers.
	By making everything available, we must not allow ourselves to be subject to an open season of malicious and vexatious attacks. We have a duty to uphold and sustain the dignity of this place as well as honouring, as we should, our obligation to come clean about how we spend our money. Lying behind my hon. Friend's question is an issue that I think will arise: if we are doing all this because we are the guardians of the taxpayer's money, that responsibility will apply equally to the cost that will be incurred by publishing every receipt and investigating every FOI request. That cost was running into millions of pounds, so it may be that people seeking information on a regular basis will have to pay a small charge. That question will have to be explored.

Gordon Prentice: Another issue is always in the background: the capital gain that some Members enjoy from their ownership of a second home here in London. That gain distinguishes Members who rent from those who buy. Does the hon. Gentleman have a view on that?

Alan Duncan: In the current climate, I think that hon. Members are more concerned about making a capital loss.

John Bercow: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. He is making an excellent and non-partisan speech that most people would consider entirely fitting for the occasion. Does he agree that, if the House is to go for greater transparency and audit—and I, for one, believe that it absolutely must do so—it will be incumbent on the House collectively to defend the integrity of the items for which it is permissible to claim and on which the House has agreed? In other words, does he agree that we really do not want Members to score points off each other, for example by saying that it is all right to claim mortgage interest but not to claim for legitimate furnishing or other items? After all, Members do not inherit their furniture and they are behaving perfectly properly when they seek support to run a second home.

Alan Duncan: Unlike the other, late Alan who used to stand at this Dispatch Box, I am afraid that I did have to buy my own furniture.
	I shall conclude by responding to the questions that various Liberal Democrat Members have asked. As I said, the question remains about the level down to which information will have to be revealed. I do not want to pre-empt today either the judgment from the Information Commissioner or the decisions of the Committee on which I shall sit in future about how what we are putting in place today is likely to be implemented to everyone's satisfaction. The intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) made it clear that the High Court made its decision because no satisfactory regime was in place. That decision will be different if the proposals before us are supported at the end of the debate, and the Information Commissioner might say that going down to the receipt level is disproportionate and unnecessary. He may conclude that the new categories meet the highest imaginable standards compared with any other public body and that they will therefore suffice.
	Whatever the House decides, I hope that we can bring an end to the press having a field day at our expense and thereby diminishing both Parliament and the whole process of democracy. In the past, they have had a good basis for doing that and they have been entitled to point out the worst offences. We need to bring that to an end.
	We need to move on and make this place work better, and to make people realise that this is an honest Parliament. It is probably more honest than any other that I know in the world, and it is here to serve people. People would benefit from respecting it—they may even want to be elected to it—and from appreciating what we all try to do for our constituents. That would enhance our democracy instead of causing it to decay.

David Heath: I begin by saying that the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), who is not in his place at the moment, made a very important point to the Leader of the House in his intervention. The system that we have been working with may have its inadequacies, but all hon. Members who submit a claim sign a certificate to the effect that they have used the money for a purpose that is consistent with their parliamentary duties. I agree with him in that I cannot understand how people can get away with using that money for a purpose that is wholly inconsistent with their parliamentary duties. How can it be said that there is something unclear about the certification that we all sign each time we claim? It is unfortunate that the impression has been given that, somehow, it was sufficiently unclear that it was all right to have blatantly fiddled the system, as, sadly, one or two Members appear to have done.

Oliver Heald: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the faults has been that we have not had a system of audit that goes beyond the signature and allows proper scrutiny, simply as a check that hon. Members are behaving in accordance with what they have signed for? That is the great strength of the improved arrangements that are being put in place today. As a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, I think it important, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan) was saying from the Front Bench, that we should uphold the highest principles—in fact, the seven principles that Lord Nolan proposed—and the new audit arrangements are a step in the right direction.

David Heath: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and he will know—because he used to be my sparring partner on these issues for many years—how often I have said that we need better and essentially external audit of what is done in the House. I am therefore very pleased that that is part of the proposals today.
	The Leader of the House suggested in the earlier exchanges that we do not want to get into a Dutch auction between the parties on who is holier than thou, and I absolutely agree. It is important that we as a House come together on the issue and find a way forward that does not try to divide us into different camps, nor enable any portion of the House to claim a specific sanctimony all its own, as that is unhelpful to the process of finding the right solution.
	I want to spend a little time on the Freedom of Information Act statutory instrument. It has been withdrawn, but it is extremely cogent to the proposed scheme of publication. I wholly welcome its withdrawal. I always intended to oppose it, as I have always opposed such matters. The one party political point that I want to make—I hope it is not at the expense of others—is simply that I was very saddened by the spin coming from those who speak for No. 10, who suggested yesterday that the statutory instrument was based on what was called an all-party agreement. It was categorically not based on an all-party agreement. The Liberal Democrats were neither asked the question, nor did we agree to it. I see the Leader of the House nodding on that point. It is thus wholly incorrect to suggest that we would support such an exemption for Members of Parliament.

Harriet Harman: I had not planned to intervene, because I spoke for so long; but to put the record straight, I never said "all-party support". I said that I understood that we had the support of the official Opposition. Of course, a Liberal Democrat Member served on the Members Estimate Committee, so was aware of what we were planning, but I have never taken that to be assent from the hon. Gentleman's party or ever claimed that.

David Heath: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Lady for clarifying that. She was absolutely correct in what she said, as was the Prime Minister in what he said from the Dispatch Box yesterday, but it was spun a different way later, which is unfortunate.
	If we had been asked, we would have said no, because we do not believe that the House should be exempted from the Freedom of Information Act on this matter. We have always argued that that Act should not be diluted. The first Committee on which I ever served in the House was the one that considered the Freedom of Information Bill, and we argued then that the Bill was a diluted form of the excellent White Paper, produced by Lord Clark of Windermere when he was in government, on which it was based. It was diluted again in the Standing Committee and when it returned to the Chamber. Ever since, there have been attempts, notably by the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (David Maclean), to dilute it again. If we keep on diluting the Freedom of Information Act, we get to a point where it is positively homeopathic in its dilution—it no longer has the effect that we want it to have—and that is something that we should oppose, and my hon. Friends will certainly do so.

Mark Hunter: Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, despite several attempts to get an assurance from the Leader of the House that the Government will not seek to exempt MPs from freedom of information legislation on any future occasion, she was evidently unable to provide such a categorical assurance to the House today? Does he also share the concern that the only conclusion we can draw from that is that, despite what is being said today, there may yet be further occasions when the Government will seek, once again, to exempt MPs from the Freedom of Information Act? We are seeking to defend an important principle.

David Heath: I agree with my hon. Friend that the principle is important—it is one of the three principles that I am about to set out—and I was disappointed that the Leader of the House was not able to give that categorical assurance, because it would have been helpful to the House, particularly to those hon. Members who felt that we were going in entirely the wrong direction in trying to disapply the freedom of information provisions to ourselves.

Julian Lewis: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Heath: I will give way in a moment; I am about to set out the three very important principles that we should abide by in this respect.

Frank Field: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Heath: I have just indicated that I am about to set out three principles, so it would not be helpful for me to take an intervention just at that point.
	The first principle is that the concept of freedom of information applies to Members of Parliament as much as to anyone else in the public services. That is non-negotiable. The second principle is that the public have a right to know how public money is spent. Again, that is a key principle. The third principle is almost a reverse of the second in some ways: MPs should get the expenses that they need to do the job they are asked to do on behalf of the public and the community that they service—not a penny more, not a penny less. We should be prepared to defend the provision of those expenses. No one else would call them "expenses"; they are the running costs involved in being a Member, and we should not be defensive or ashamed about that. That is what is necessary to do the job that we do in the House.

Julian Lewis: I warmly welcome the non-partisan way in which the hon. Gentleman is approaching the subject, but on never diluting the Freedom of Information Act and never making an exception, may I remind him of the important point that was made by the Leader of the House? An exemption to the Act was made in respect of MPs because of the insane decision by the High Court that our home addresses should be published. I must remind him that, quite rightly, at least half of his parliamentary party signed up to that and that not one Member chose to divide the House on it. So that is why it is perfectly reasonable for the Leader of the House not to give a blanket commitment never do that again, whatever the circumstances. When the Act was originally passed, no one in their wildest dreams would have imagined that the High Court would be mad enough to suggest that our home addresses should be published en masse on the internet for the benefit of any trouble maker at home or terrorist abroad.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. May I plead for interventions to be the standard length? I have been very flexible about it this afternoon, but they are tending to become mini speeches.

David Heath: I am most grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The interventions have been rather longer than the small interludes in between, when I have been speaking.
	The hon. Gentleman makes a point. He knows, I think, that I did not agree with him on that—others did—and I made it clear that I did not. There must be very specific and particular security reasons for non-publication. Everyone knows where I live in my constituency. That is published in the phone directory, and I make no secret of it. But there are specific reasons for specific Members where that is not the case.

Gordon Prentice: On the issue of not a penny more, not a penny less, may I return to the question that I put to the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan)? Should any capital gain arise from the ownership of a London property, should it be paid to the Treasury? If there were a loss subsequently, the Treasury could pay the Member who had lost out.

David Heath: I do not think that there should be personal gain; that is my view. Actually, I would go further than that, and when we considered the review, I made a recommendation. Years ago, we arrived at the wrong system when we decided that people could buy properties and reclaim the mortgage. I know that there are contrary views on the issue. Some say, "Well, actually, that has been a saving to the taxpayer," but the situation would be much clearer if we identified a place to live and the rental was paid directly by the House. Then there would not be any question of people buying furniture and acquiring gain from their property. However, that is not the system, and I do not criticise any Member for abiding by the current rules, because that is what is set out.
	It is wrong to suggest that when somebody has used the current allowances to buy a property, and then has to put furniture in it—shock, horror, they need some furniture!—it is somehow a scandalous waste of public money. That does not make sense. One must use either one system or another. We cannot have a system and then criticise those who use it in a perfectly sensible and sober way.

Frank Field: I want to come back to the substantive point that we are discussing today. It is not a general point about the Freedom of Information Act and how it operates; the issue is how it operates specifically with regard to our expenses. Is it not true that however the Government wish to present those expenses, our constituents will be able to find out what we have spent and how we have spent it?

David Heath: That moves me neatly on to what I was going to say next. My difficulty with the proposals before us is the relationship between the scheme of publication that has been suggested, which has many admirable qualities, and extant freedom of information requests and decisions of the tribunal and the High Court, which cannot just be wished away; they exist. The tragedy is that if the House had used its brain a little more three or four years ago when the issues started cropping up, and had realised then that the need to respond to the public interest meant having a proper scheme of publication and a proper audit system, I think that would have satisfied the Information Commissioner. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that it would. Then we would not have had many of the discussions that we have had in the past few days.
	The tragedy is that those who did not want to disclose anything have ended up having to disclose everything because they could not see the way the wind was blowing. I hope that this is a lesson to Members of the House: when the public have a legitimate right to know something, trying to keep it secret beyond the point at which that is tenable is a very bad tactic, quite part from anything else, because the result will not be what they expect it to be.

Simon Hughes: My hon. Friend has given us wise words. Does he not agree that the conclusion of what he says is that a simple pair of messages must come from the House? The first is that we will comply with the law that applies to everybody else, and secondly, we will make available to the public all the information about the money that they give us and how it is spent?

David Heath: That must be the case. That brings me to my difficulty with what the Leader of the House is saying. She has brought forward a scheme which, as I say, has many admirable qualities, but the problem is that it has been trumped by the decision of the High Court, following the tribunal decision. If an application were made, but the House decided not to comply with that application, and the case went before the Information Commissioner and was appealed to the tribunal, before going to the High Court, it may well be that a different view would be taken on the basis of the scheme before us today. However, that is by no means certain.
	The right hon. and learned Lady is saying, "We shall have to decide, once the measures are in place, whether we want to continue releasing information down to receipt level, in accordance with the Court judgment." We are deciding not to do that, under the measures that we are debating today, because the scheme of publication does not allow for that. It would be perverse to have two schemes of publication—one by category, and the other down to receipt level—operating in parallel. That is my difficulty. There is no resolution of that problem at the moment; it will depend on how the House decides to proceed. However, I think that we are getting ourselves into another mess.
	I am assuming that the House authorities will now release all the redacted information that they have been working so assiduously to produce, and have spent £2 million on preparing. If they do not, I have to say that if I were a person who had an FOI application in place, I would be rushing to the High Court to try to get a mandatory injunction to ensure that the House complied. I am not sure whether the House would have its assets sequestered as a result, but that would be an interesting constitutional outcome. It is now clear that the House has to comply with the request, and I inferred from what the Leader of the House said that it was the intention to do so in the very near future.

Nick Palmer: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Heath: Well, yes.

Nick Palmer: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, albeit slightly unenthusiastically. The amendment that my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) tabled was designed to ensure that information down to receipt level was available, if necessary. We are not allowed to speculate in detail on why it was not selected, but I believe that the reason is that its provisions are covered by the intention of the House. I would certainly be disappointed if that were not the case.

David Heath: There have been several expressions of disappointment about the fact that the amendment was not selected, but the issue is not in my hands. The inevitable result of the situation that will pertain by the end of the debate, provided that we go ahead with the proposals, is that we will have the scheme of delegation, but it will be superseded by the fact that we are required, under a current ruling, and until an alternative ruling is in place, to provide information down to receipt level. That is the position that the House is in, and it should be aware of that. Given that, the Leader of the House may like to consult her colleagues to see whether there are more sensible alternatives to the method of redaction being used. There are various ways of achieving the same result. The first is redaction at source—

Harriet Harman: In future?

David Heath: Yes, I am talking about the future. We could invite Members to go through a redacting process at source, before they hand in the receipt, to make sure that it does not contain certain things. There is also the "blank sheet" proposal, in which hon. Members would transfer the information from the receipt on to a standard form, which provides the information that is properly released. It is that form that is submitted, but it is of course backed up by a receipt, which is open to audit by the auditors. Both those systems would be much cheaper than what takes place at the moment, and would have fewer implications for the staff of the House. I hope that we will consider that.
	The changes in the Green Book do not necessarily go as far as I would like, but they accurately reflect the decisions of the House. A good job has been done in translating the decisions of the House into the new regulations. As I say, it is not the Green Book that I would have written, but I nevertheless think the House should support it. I have already spoken about external audit: it is the most important element of the package before us today, because until there is an audit people can trust of how we run the mini-businesses that are our offices, they will not accept our word that we have done it properly.
	That brings me to the point on which I want to finish. Surely the lesson from the whole affair is that we constantly need to step outside this place and look at ourselves as others see us, rather than thinking about our concerns and the potential for embarrassment or difficulties, which is undoubtedly there. We know that the press will make mischief out of almost anything that we do. There will be people who will deeply regret the publication of their expenses claims because they will have them splashed all over the papers, and upsetting and misleading statements will be made about how spendthrift they are. That will happen. It is regrettable, and one would hope that it would not, but it will. At the same time, surely we ought to see our behaviour as the outside world sees it. One of the great sadnesses of the proposal that was on the Order Paper until yesterday was that what the outside world saw was our hiding from the public who pay our wages, and that is not right. I hope that we will not do so again.

Hugh Bayley: I warmly welcome the Government's decision not to seek to exempt Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I was one of the Labour Back Benchers who went to the Whips and said that they could not vote for such a proposal. I do not frequently clash with my party's Front Benchers, but on this occasion I felt that it was an important matter. I take great pride in the fact that my party is led by people who listen and respond. It should be respected for that.
	I also welcome motion 2, which is in the name of the Leader of the House. It substantially increases the detail of Members' expenses that the House will publish routinely and automatically each year, without the need for freedom of information requests. However, I am concerned that the motion does not go far enough to reassure public concerns about MPs' expenses. I fear that there could be a gap between the 26 categories set out in the motion and the receipts publication scheme, which has yet to be implemented.
	The reputation of the House and of MPs generally is not as high as I would like, and our hesitation or reluctance to respond fully and openly to freedom of information requests about our expenses has contributed to that. Our reputation matters. If people respect Parliament, they are more likely to listen to the sometimes conflicting views expressed in the House, and to accept our decisions, especially when they do not agree with them. Equally importantly, they are more likely to take the trouble to turn out and vote in elections.
	I wish to illustrate my concern by speaking in particular about motion 2(2)(b)(v), which refers to "fixtures, fittings and furnishings" under the heading of the personal additional accommodation expenditure allowance. I say to the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) that I am not suggesting that that area of expenses is more open to criticism than another. I have chosen to focus on it for two reasons. First, there is a widespread public interest in the issue, given the public comment and coverage about the John Lewis list. Secondly, fixtures, fittings and furnishings purchased under that heading are likely to be more expensive than the registered letters, mentioned by the Leader of the House, that are referred to in the congressional compendium of Members' expenses.
	The new Green Book sets high standards for us Members to observe. We do not have those standards as a badge of our good standing and then set them aside; we have them because we mean to apply them. Let me read one or two items from the new Green Book. It states:
	"Claims must only be made for expenditure that it was necessary for a Member to incur to ensure that he or she could properly perform his or her parliamentary duties."
	I think it perfectly reasonable for a Member of Parliament to purchase a £250 or £300 television for their second home so that they can watch "Newsnight" after the day's business and keep up to date with the television news. However, I am not sure that it would be necessary to purchase a £1,500 widescreen television; if a Member did, some of their constituents might think that that had more to do with watching football matches at the weekend than keeping up with the news, which would be a necessary part of parliamentary business.

Tony Wright: Such examples illuminate the debate. They are one reason why even an expanded publication list does not quite do the job. We all accept that a Member has to buy a television set, refrigerator or vacuum cleaner to maintain a house down here. However, if someone bought those things every year and claimed for them, that would be an abuse. We would not know that that abuse was being carried on if we simply had aggregate figures, even on an expanded publication list—we would know only if we had detailed expenditures.

Hugh Bayley: I fully agree. I am not allowed to refer to an amendment that I put down, but my hon. Friend will be aware that I take the view—in relation to this category at least, and possibly to others—that we would do more to reassure the public if we published routinely and without the need for freedom of information requests a more detailed breakdown of expenditure.
	On my hon. Friend's point, I should explain that the reason why there may be a gap between the 26 categories on the one hand, and the receipt publication scheme on the other is that anyone who has looked at freedom of information documents provided in response to freedom of information requests will be aware that one of the ways sometimes used to confuse the information seeker is to provide reams of documents, often with black marks crossing out certain passages. That makes it extremely hard for the person who has requested the information to dig out the facts that they are after. It has happened to me; it took me literally hours to find the nugget of information that I was after in a package of a few hundred pages with some markings out.
	When more than 1 million Members' receipt documents with crossings out are released, it will be extremely difficult for a member of the public to sort the wheat from the chaff. It does not help the public or anybody else to release thousands and thousands of receipts from Ryman's for staplers or single reams of paper. However, as my hon. Friend points out, it may make sense to release receipts for larger capital items so that somebody could check, as my hon. Friend suggested, whether a new television had been bought three years running.

Gordon Prentice: We do not want to set hares running. My Friend mentioned a £1,500 television set, but that would never have got through the old system. The Green Book says that items of furniture and so on must not be extravagant, and I do not want people out there to think that we routinely buy super-expensive televisions.

Hugh Bayley: My hon. Friend has made his point— [Interruption.] No, I do not think that he is right, because a judgment about what is and is not extravagant has to be made and the public have a right to share in making that judgment. If the information is not available to them, they will not be able to look at the evidence and make judgments themselves. Unless we give them the opportunity to do so, our motives will remain in question.

John Bercow: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point about the distinction between a modestly priced item and an extravagantly priced one, but that has been satisfactorily addressed by the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice). I put it to the hon. Gentleman that his concern is substantially addressed on page 11 of the revised Green Book, given the proposed 10 per cent. limit as a proportion of the total allowance that can be paid in respect of the type of items that he is describing.

Hugh Bayley: Ten per cent. of the allowance is about £2,000. To say to the public that Members can spend £2,000 without having regularly and routinely to face the discipline of that expenditure being broken down in the figures that the House releases to the public would put us, as the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) suggested, in a position of doing slightly too little, slightly too late, and leave the public feeling that we were not doing enough to reassure them that our expenditures are made for good parliamentary reasons. That is why I would like the Leader of the House and those who speak for the other parties to reflect on what I have said in their closing remarks.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Pendle noted that the new Green Book refers to extravagance. It says:
	"Members should avoid purchases which could be seen as extravagant or luxurious."

Gordon Prentice: The old Green Book said that as well.

Hugh Bayley: I am glad to see that it is there. How will the public be reassured that the items are not extravagant or luxurious unless we release the information to them, and do so in a form that is digestible instead of as part of a compendium of 1.2 million receipts, the vast majority of which nobody would express any interest in whatever?

George Young: I want to make a brief contribution to this debate wearing the hat of the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee.
	I congratulate the hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) on a thoughtful speech. I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan), who is momentarily not in the Chamber, for making a very good maiden speech in his new capacity, setting exactly the right tone and balance for the debate.

John Bercow: So did the Leader of the House.

George Young: Yes, but it was not a maiden speech.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton mentioned the absence of oil as a commodity for which we should provide receipts. If he had to produce receipts for all the oil that he had purchased in his life, I suspect that it would involve a very substantial sum.
	I welcome the production of the new version of the Green Book and congratulate its authors. The background to their task was the mixed reception for the report by the so-called MEC 3 back in July. I hope that we are now back on track to produce a new set of rules. My Committee has an interest in clear rules with robust and reliable advice from the Department of Resources, because we want to reduce the number of times that colleagues come into contact with the House's self-disciplinary system and are then investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and subsequently by my Committee.
	I want to take issue, I am afraid, with something that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) said; I do not do that very often. He started his speech by saying that he could not understand how it could be unclear when a Member signed off the application for reimbursement. If he looks through the reports from the Committee of which he was briefly a member, he will see that lack of clarity in the rules and flawed advice or procedures from the House authorities have been contributory factors in complaints against Members being upheld. There is an imperative to move towards greater clarity of the rules to avoid the sorts of problems that have arisen in the past.

David Heath: Let me clarify what I said. I absolutely agree that there was sometimes a lack of clarity, which may have contributed in marginal cases. My point was about somebody having deliberately and clearly flouted the rules and written something untrue by signing their name to a certificate to say that something was incurred in support of their parliamentary duties. Like the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), I cannot understand why that is not a prosecutable offence.

George Young: I take that point, but it is not always clear whether something is necessarily wholly and exclusively for parliamentary purposes, and we need to be as clear as we can.

Nick Harvey: rose—

George Young: I give way to another member of my Committee.

Nick Harvey: Is not one of the strengths of the regulatory systems inside Parliament that the burden of proof necessary is not that which an external court would need? The hon. Member for Stafford and my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome say that they do not understand why a prosecution did not take place in the case involved. The answer is perfectly simple—that the standard of proof that would have been required in the criminal court was not obtained, but the standard of proof necessary for the House to come to a very severe conclusion in that case was met.

George Young: Indeed. That is the answer to a question that was raised earlier—why, in a particular case, the police did not prosecute but the House was able to come to a conclusion.
	My Committee has an interest in the broader reputational issues of the House that have been discussed during the debate, and I think that the revised audit proposals can increase public confidence in how taxpayers' money is spent. My view is that the vast majority of colleagues have nothing whatever to fear from greater transparency, and it is unfortunate that more recently an impression to the contrary may have been given. As we have just heard, where colleagues do break the rules, the disciplinary consequences can be politically terminal.
	I want to refer to an issue touched on by the Leader of the House—the need to ensure that the role of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, who is an independent Officer of the House, and the role of the Committee to which he reports are not prejudiced by the dispute resolution procedure proposed in the report. Paragraph 5 of the introduction to the report before the House makes no reference to the role of either body in determining whether expenditure is allowable, and the resolution before the House gives that task to the Committee on Members' Allowances. It could therefore be possible for two Select Committees of this House to come to a different view on whether the rules have been broken. That would not be a good outcome.
	Public confidence in our behaviour has been enhanced over the past 12 years by having an independent parliamentary commissioner whose reports we always publish. I pay tribute to the work of Philip Mawer and John Lyon; indeed, today we publish two of John Lyon's reports. It is important that this strong independent outside element is not bypassed or undermined by the new procedures and that the commissioner retains the discretion to determine whether to investigate and whether there has been a breach of the rules. I was grateful to the Leader of the House for the assurance that she gave on that point.

John Bercow: I agree with the thrust of the concern that my right hon. Friend is expressing. Certainly, we do not want anything to be introduced which, by accident or design, would make our procedures more opaque or decision making, if I may say so, more long-winded. Does he agree, without reference to any particular case, that where individuals are the subject of investigation, there is an important principle to bear in mind—not only that someone is innocent until proven guilty but that justice delayed is justice denied? It is incredibly important that timely decisions are reached about the fate of individual Members.

George Young: I agree with that. Without referring to an individual case, one can contrast the time that the police authorities or the Crown Prosecution Service may take to reach a conclusion and the much reduced length of time that the House can take to reach a decision on an identical matter.
	I am very grateful to the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) for his helpful approach to the issues that I have mentioned, avoiding any conflict of conclusions on whether the rules have breached. He and my Committee had a helpful meeting on Tuesday. Between us, we can resolve two imperatives—on the one hand, preserving robust existing disciplinary procedures with the commissioner, and on the other, giving authoritative guidance to colleagues where there is uncertainty.
	In paragraph 6, there is a reference to practice notes. Those will be important, and I hope that the commissioner and my Committee might be included in the consultation on these, as we have some corporate knowledge of operating them. For example, the practice notes on what is a main home may need to take account of past cases where lack of clarity has caused difficulties. The new Committee on Members' Allowances is given the role of keeping the rules under review, but the parliamentary commissioner has a similar obligation under Standing Order No. 150, as has my Committee under Standing Order No. 149. We have a view on the content, interpretation and propriety of the rules, but the new Committee is given a similar responsibility. Again, we will need to work closely together to avoid duplication; I am sure that with good will that can be done.
	I strongly endorse the principle of Members taking personal responsibility for all expenses incurred, as set out on page 7, but I wonder whether the practice notes might give some guidance on what might be seen as extravagant or luxurious, to pick up a point made by the hon. Member for City of York. I also endorse the principle of avoiding claims that damage the reputation of Parliament
	On travel expenditure, am I alone in questioning the cumbersome and time-consuming new arrangements for auditing rail travel? They are far more complex than the old warrant regime. May I suggest spot checks? Proportionality is an important concept, and misuse of rail travel between Westminster and the constituency has not been a source of problems. Filling in every detail, every month, of every rail journey between Waterloo and Andover is not, in my view, a productive use of my time.
	The document has rules on communication and stationery that take up the points in my Committee's 19th report, but it would have been helpful if we had been in the loop with regard to this document. Other bodies in the House were consulted on its drafting, but neither the commissioner nor my Committee were, and I see no good reason for that.
	I also welcome the recommendation that material to be published and claimed for under the communications allowance—the newsletters—should be submitted in advance. If all colleagues do that, we will avoid a lot of problems. I welcome the operational assurance proposals. It is important that that unit within the Department Of Resources should be properly resourced and staffed by people with authority and an understanding of what the life of an MP involves.
	I make a small and final plea. The claim forms are available online, but we cannot complete them on a computer. We have to print them out and fill them in by hand—not all colleagues have good handwriting—and we then have to photocopy them if we want to keep a copy before sending them off. I would like to fill it in online, print it out, sign it and send it off, and then keep the file on the computer, but the present regime does not permit that. It is a small plea, and I am sure that it is not beyond the wit of man to enable that process to take place.
	Of course, we have to be open and transparent, and accountable for the money that we spend. We were sent here originally to keep an eye on what the King spent on behalf of our constituents. That responsibility as custodians of the public purse remains and we should be doubly vigilant when the money goes through our own banks. But we were also sent here to hold the Government to account and to fight for our constituents, and our energies should not be diverted from that task by unnecessary bureaucratic procedures. I believe that the proposals before us give us the chance to strike a better balance.

Tony Wright: I fully expected to be on the losing side today. My understanding was that the dark forces on both sides of the House had conspired— [ Interruption. ] Well, my colleagues on both sides of the House had come together to persuade the Government to remove the House and Members of Parliament from the scrutiny of the Freedom of Information Act in relation to detailed spending. That was the proposal that we were to be presented with today, and because I have learned over the years that the dark forces normally get their way, I imagined that it would be carried. It is only because I thought that it would be carried that I suggested to a colleague we might try to recover the situation. I know that amendments have not been taken, but the point of our proposal was to say to people who had worries about the retrospective nature of the provisions that we could at least decide prospectively that we wanted to sign up to what the court has told us to do.
	That situation will not arise, however, because we have returned to where we were. I am glad about that, and I am glad that we are now all on the same side. I am delighted to be able to support all these good and sensible proposals on increased audit and assurance and an expanded publication scheme. Unfortunately, however, we have to remember the history. It is to the great credit of the Government that they introduced the Freedom of Information Act. I remember the process well, as does the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath). It is to the great credit of the Government and the House that they decided to include Parliament in the Act's provisions. Most people thought that we should be in the vanguard of these matters. We speak a lot about accountability and transparency, and therefore it was felt that we should be central to the new provisions.
	The problem is that, since then, large numbers of Members of Parliament have sought to extricate themselves from the onerous provisions that they passed. I can understand why they, we, I would want to do that. The implications of the Act can be extremely irritating. Newspapers can foment mischief and misinformation about what we spend money on. Our political opponents can use the Act simply to cause all kinds of trouble and to spread misinformation. All of that is true, and I have enormous sympathy with those who make such points, but the remedy is not to say that we should find a way in which, uniquely, Members of Parliament can be removed from the provisions.
	I am afraid that people do not think that our system of allowances is robust enough. We know, if we are honest with ourselves—and this has been said by several hon. Members already today—that this was a disaster waiting to happen. We had a system of allowances that was open to manifold abuse. I do not know the extent to which it has been abused. I know that there has been a spectacular case of abuse, but there may be others that show the capacity for abuse. When the issue was tested to assess whether there should be more direct access to detailed accounts of MPs' expenditure, the Information Tribunal and courts were emphatic because of our tolerance of the deficiencies of the system.

Bob Spink: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tony Wright: I will in just a second. The tribunal said last year:
	"The ACA system"—
	the additional costs allowance system—
	"is so deeply flawed, the shortfall in accountability so substantial, and the necessity of full disclosure so convincingly established, that only the most pressing privacy needs should in our view be permitted to prevail."
	When the High Court went over the same set of issues, and was asked to do the same balancing exercise, it said in its judgment:
	"We have no doubt that the public interest is at stake. We are not here dealing with idle gossip or public curiosity about what in truth are trivialities. The expenditure of public money through the payment of MPs' salaries and allowances is a matter of direct and reasonable interest to taxpayers...they bear on public confidence in the operation of our democratic system at its very pinnacle, the House of Commons itself. The nature of the legitimate public interest engaged by these applications is obvious."
	That is a coruscating verdict on a system that we have allowed to continue over the years. That is why I say that the abuses were waiting to happen.
	Let us be clear: the effect of the withdrawal of the proposal overnight is that we are now back in the situation that the court judgment brought about. We are going to have an expanded publication scheme, and I welcome that. It is a good thing, but we are now also subject to the decision under FOI law that the details of our expenditure should be published. I am not sure whether this is an example of the dark forces still being dark, but there is clearly still a feeling among some hon. Members that if we can only agree to an expanded category of items to be published, we will somehow be able to extricate ourselves at the eleventh hour from the decisions that have made the publication of our expenditure inevitable. I say to those dark forces that that is not the case.
	Those who have followed the Freedom of Information Act will know that the obligation to produce publication schemes is a quite separate arm of the Act from the testing of disclosure provisions in the public interest. There should be a good publication scheme, approved by the Information Commissioner, and I hope that ours will now be better. However, that will do nothing to satisfy the public interest test that is applied to disclosure. That test has been applied by both the tribunal and the court, and that is the situation in which we must live.
	It was not entirely clear from the Leader of the House's answers where she believes that now leaves us. She must be honest and direct with the House and admit that it leaves us in the position that I have just described. It would be wholly unsatisfactory to have a hit-and-miss, ad hoc disclosure system. As hon. Members have said, we must all be systematically covered in the same way, so that information is released on a standard, properly redacted basis. That is what we have been told to do, and there is no escape from it and no eleventh-hour reprieve. The reprieve that Members thought would work for them has collapsed, and there is no other. It is now time to say that this is the world in which we live.

Gordon Prentice: I do not have any problem with the publication of receipts, but what about the proportionality that my friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) mentioned, as in the case of thousands and thousands of receipts from Ryman's? Does my Friend want us routinely to submit receipts from the Members' restaurant or the canteen? Would he insist on every single receipt being handed into the authorities, regardless of the value of the service purchased?

Tony Wright: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I think that any relevant receipt should be produced. My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House described the elaborate, and I thought necessary, process that had been gone through to ensure that only relevant information will be published. That is what this whole exercise has been about.

Andrew MacKinlay: On proportionality, I suspect that like me, when he was first elected my hon. Friend was told by the Fees Office that he could not claim for newspapers. I remember expressing some surprise, because we do not just need the daily newspaper that anyone would buy. A tool of our trade, particularly on Sundays, is often the whole set of papers, but we could not claim for it. I recently discovered that that rule had been abrogated or allowed to drift, and that I had lost years of expenses. I wanted clarification in writing, and since then I have been keeping receipts for all my damn newspapers. I have not submitted them yet, but do we really want to have to get receipts for so many papers on a certain day?
	It so happens that I cannot get newspapers delivered to my house, so I cannot get a weekly receipt. I just buy them when I need to. I suppose that this is a small point, although I am not sure whether it is over a period of years, but what is the answer to the problem of newspapers?  [Interruption.] Well, my hon. Friend—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman has made his point.

Tony Wright: I apologise to my hon. Friend; I have not yet given enough thought to the newspaper question, but I shall now give it substantial thought. What I do know is the rubric that is to be contained in the instructions to us, which is simple and helpful: that we should not claim for anything about which we are not willing to be subjected to public scrutiny. It is a straightforward principle. If we claim for the right things, we have the answers to any queries that arise—whether about newspapers or anything else. As I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for City of York, although the extended publication scheme is welcome, I am worried that, if we continue to deal in aggregate figures, one could not discover a range of abuses that might exist. Given all that has happened, there is no alternative but to ensure that we put in place and believe in a system that will hound out any possible abuse, and discipline Members to ensure that it works.
	There is an old adage that sunshine is the best disinfectant. We have not had sunshine and we have therefore needed disinfectant. People who believe that a little bit of sunshine now means that we can keep out much other scrutiny are wholly misguided. We live in a regime under which people can see in detail on what we spend money. There is no rowing back from that. I wish that my right hon. and learned Friend had simply said on behalf of the Government that that is the world in which we live and that we must make the best of it.

Jo Swinson: I welcome the debate today and the generally constructive tone. I welcome the helpful proposals to improve accountability for our expenses and I especially welcome the withdrawal of the proposal to exempt Members of Parliament from freedom of information legislation.
	I was very taken with the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), especially his call for us "to see ourselves as others see us." He may not know that that is a quote from a poem by Robert Burns, and it is all the more appropriate given that we will celebrate Burns night on Sunday. We should hold on to that pearl of wisdom throughout the debate.
	We must admit that we have a problem with public perception. Survey after survey shows that members of the public tend to have a positive view of their Member of Parliament, but that their view of us collectively, as a breed of politicians, is much more negative. That is where many of the problems lie. The subject of Members' expenses has fuelled the negative perception. As has been said, it has been a vexed issue for many years.
	It does not help that our expenses system is so poorly understood, and that the media have been less than helpful in sensationalising expenses. Indeed, the word "expenses" is misleading because in most jobs—certainly in jobs that I had before being elected—some of the items for which we claim would not necessarily count as expenses. For example, large headline figures of more than £100,000 are produced, but the vast majority of that money is spent on the salaries of our incredibly hard-working staff, who deal with constituents' concerns day in, day out. Constituents greatly appreciate that help and continually give excellent feedback about our staff. Those salaries make up most of our expenses, but what newspaper editor or managing director would include in their expenses the salaries of everybody who worked in their organisation?

John Bercow: The hon. Lady makes a powerful and important point. Does she agree that it is incumbent on us to explain what we, as Members, and the public are getting in return for those staffing budgets? To put it simply, if the sums available were much lower, the delays to constituents would be that much greater. Some of the vexatious complainants about the size of the allowances are precisely the same people who would grumble about the tardiness of our responses.

Jo Swinson: The hon. Gentleman is right. The service that our staff provide enables us to deal with, for example, the more than 3,000 constituency cases that the Leader of the House mentioned. That figure is not unusual for most Members. From speaking to Members who have been here much longer than me, I know that the volume of correspondence has increased hugely in recent years. Although e-mail is an excellent way in which people can communicate with their Members of Parliament, making communication easier means that the volume of correspondence increases and more support is required to handle the inquiries.
	Many of our constituents mistakenly believe that the money comes directly to us and is paid into bank accounts, from which we pay out. We know that money comes directly to us for certain allowances, for example, the allowance for rent, only when we have submitted the claim and the receipt to show that we have already paid. As a new Member, with student debts, I suddenly had to pay deposits and found that cash flow was a bit of a problem in the first two weeks, so that is another misconception.
	References to second homes can conjure up an image of a gravy train and of holiday homes, but the reality is that we get out of this place at 10 o'clock or 10.30 on Monday and Tuesday evenings and just about manage to get back to somewhere in London to put our head down and try to get a decent night's sleep before we come back here early the next morning. It is not exactly a glamorous lifestyle.
	I absolutely love doing the job of Member of Parliament; it is a great privilege for me to represent the people of East Dunbartonshire. However, all of us in the House know that the job is far from easy. Spending half the week away from loved ones places strains on family life, and the huge amount of travelling takes its toll, resulting in tiredness and exhaustion. I want to make it very clear that, without the support of my excellent staff, without being able to travel regularly between my constituency in Scotland and Westminster, without having somewhere to stay when I am down here in London, and without the resources to pay for my office telephone bills, my stationery and my IT equipment, I would simply be unable to do the job of representing my constituents properly. That case is not often made, but it needs to be made.
	I am in favour of transparency because I believe that, when people are presented with the mundane details of our toner cartridges and our telephone bills, the heat will go out of the issue. In the main, our constituents accept that we need to do our job, and that we need the resources to do it.

John Spellar: Has that been the experience of the Scottish Parliament? How have the Scottish media treated the matter of its expenses?

Jo Swinson: I shall come to the issue of the Scottish Parliament in a moment. By and large, that has been the experience there, because, once everything is in the public domain, journalists get a bit bored with trying to write these stories.
	Trying to hide the justifiable expenses that we claim in the process of doing our job is damaging the reputation of politics. It is also absolutely pointless. The way in which we are going is clear to see, and to try to hide the information is counterproductive. It fuels the public's negative perception of politicians and of the House.

Ann Cryer: While the hon. Lady has been talking, I have been thinking about this. The seedier end of the press seems to be getting at those of us who are possibly the most diligent, because we use all of our staffing allowance to employ people. As the hon. Lady said, we do not see that money at all. The press will get on to us about that because it does not understand that that money does not pass through our pockets but goes directly to our staff. Also, those of us who go to our constituencies every week—I do, and I think that most of us do—have higher travel costs. If we go by train, our travel costs will perhaps be higher than if we went by car, although we could make a greater profit out of using a car. None of these things is taken into account. Last year, I was told by my local paper that I was the highest-spending MP in Bradford, because my train fares came to more than those of the other four MPs. There were all sorts of reasons for that, and they were only £20 more. So, this year, I have started to use my senior citizen's rail pass to reduce the amount of money that I am using—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Interventions should be brief, and the hon. Lady has certainly made her point.

Jo Swinson: It was a very good point. At the other end of the spectrum, when I was first elected to the House, I was still able to use my young person's rail card, so my travel bills went up slightly after my first year as a Member of Parliament.
	The hon. Lady has made a good point, and transparency should be our friend. We might not be able to guarantee treatment that is always favourable or entirely fair from the media; I cannot promise that we would get such treatment. However, I believe that our constituents will, by and large, treat us fairly. They, at least, will be in a position to assess the situation, if they can see the travel claims and other expenses of the hon. Lady or any other Member. They know how hard their individual MP works, and they will be able to make their own judgment. This is about ensuring that people have the power to make those judgments. They know, from dealing with our staff, that there is always a well-staffed office—and they might be aware that one MP has higher staff costs than another—and they will be able to see the benefits of that. It will be up to our constituents to judge whether we, as MPs, are spending the taxpayer's money well. Transparency, then, is a good principle for us to adopt.
	We heard earlier about the 26 categories that will now apply and debated whether every receipt should be published, which will also happen under freedom of information legislation. I accept the argument that perhaps if we had had a better publication regime before, we might not have reached the stage of the Information Commissioner's ruling that every receipt has to be published. But we are where we are, and we are now going to publish detailed receipts—1.2 million of them, as we have heard—so I would argue that it makes no sense to stop there. Once we have done this, we should have a system that enables us to do it on a regular basis, so that it is entirely transparent. We know that there will be freedom of information requests anyway, so rather than wait for them to come in, I believe that the House should be proactive and take that step.
	In effect, what is the big deal? Yes, costs are attached, and the Leader of the House gave us a figure of £2 million earlier, but I am willing to bet that the public out there—who may or may not be listening to or watching this debate—would think that it was a price well worth paying for transparency in Parliament and for restoring some trust in our democracy.
	We have had much discussion, some of it rather amusing, about whether what is proposed will be difficult to achieve, with all the redacting and so forth that will be required, but it is really not that complicated. The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly have both managed to follow such an arrangement for some time. Perhaps our officials could speak to their officials to work out the best, most civilised and reasonable way of proceeding. I quite like the example mentioned earlier of having a standard receipt form into which all the details could be put, perhaps online to save some of our staff's work and departmental resources, ensuring that receipts are tendered for the auditors to look at. There are lots of ways doing that and a streamlined system could be put in place while ensuring that all the information is in the public domain.

John Mann: On the question of the cost and the 1.2 million figure for receipts, was the hon. Lady as surprised as I was that the costs went so high? Does it not seem that many costs are included in the calculation? If one were merely scanning in pieces of paper, the recurrent cost would, in fact, be extremely low.

Jo Swinson: Another point to be borne in mind is that presumably we are going back to 2004, which will include several years' worth of expenses. If these had been annual costs, one would not have expected them to be so high. As I say, I believe that the House will be able to take steps to collect the information in a more sensible way before publishing it, so that the process is made easier.
	I very much agreed with the sentiments of the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) on the requirements for receipts. I would be in favour of having a zero limit on the requirement for receipts, as was initially recommended by the Members Estimate Committee. When I worked in business, that was standard practice. I understand that it might be a bit fiddly having to submit full receipts, but I think that the public would welcome it. If we are going to take a step towards transparency, we should go the whole way: we would have nothing to hide and the public would be aware of that fact. As we get it all into the open, it will just become routine.
	I was asked earlier about the experience of the Scottish Parliament. Yes, if we proceed with the new arrangement, I am sure that journalists will still pick up on little stories. Let us think of some examples of what was reported in the Scottish press. One story was about an MSP who claimed for a pint of milk and a packet of tea bags for the office, but to be honest, I do not know what the story is in that. When I worked in an office, whoever nipped out to buy a new packet of tea bags or pot of coffee reclaimed the money from the petty cash when they returned and stuck the receipt in the petty cash tin. That is not a story. That is not scandalous. Frankly, if that is the worst that the newspapers can come up with, people will soon get bored; the press will not sell many papers by saying that tea and coffee are provided in MPs' offices.
	The audit principle in the motions before us is also very good. I am delighted to see that the internal auditing will be more robust. More important, however, is the principle that external auditing has to be accepted. That is absolutely essential. Having each MP externally audited at least once in a Parliament is the right way forward.

Roger Williams: My hon. Friend has come to what I think is the most important point: the auditing, particularly the external auditing, of Members' claims, which provides protection for Members as much as for the public and the public purse. Members should look forward to it rather than be afraid of it. I say in passing that my hon. Friend might be a bit optimistic in thinking that full publication will somehow defuse the public interest in all this. The public interest will still be there, because some members of the public simply delight in these matters. I am nevertheless very much in favour of going ahead with the freedom of information proposals.

Jo Swinson: I am sure that there will still be great public interest in the issue, but I suspect that some of the more lurid and scandalous stories will be abated and that we will get rid of the perception that Members of Parliament are trying to hide something, which would be a very good thing indeed. My hon. Friend makes a good point about auditing giving Members a degree of protection. I believe that the opinion of most Members throughout has been that we want to ensure that we are doing things properly, but there has often been uncertainty and a lack of clarity about exactly what the right procedures are. It has been felt that it is somehow possible for Members to get into hot water even having stuck to the rules. As the hon. Member for Cannock Chase pointed out, a full transparency system has the advantage of enabling us to know that everything will be in the public domain, and a matter of judgment for our constituents.
	What happens next? I had hoped to intervene on the Leader of the House to follow up our exchange last October, when I asked when our expenses would be published. Initially, they were to be published last autumn. The Leader of the House explained today in colourful detail some of the difficulties encountered in the preparation of the material for publication and some of the important security considerations involved. Perhaps the Deputy Leader of the House will enlighten us further when he winds up the debate. Now that we are aware of the scale of the task, how many people are working on it and how much more there is to be done, may we have a more accurate estimate of the expected date of publication, so that the public can be reassured that the process will not drag on indefinitely?
	My final point relates to freedom of information legislation and to whom it applies. The one issue about which I still feel some concern is whether there is any prospect of further attempts in the House to exempt Members of Parliament from freedom of information legislation. I asked the Leader of the House that question earlier today, during business questions. The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) have also asked for assurances in that regard, but as yet none has been entirely forthcoming.
	Earlier this week, media reports suggested that there had been some tentative agreement between the Labour and Conservative parties on exemption from freedom of information legislation, but that the relevant order had been withdrawn when the agreement collapsed. I hope that lessons will be learned from the events of this week, and that there will be no moves to create another such agreement and to return the proposal to the House.

David Heath: I do not know whether my hon. Friend noticed that during the proceedings before the order was withdrawn it was submitted to another place, where it was examined by the Select Committee on the Merits of Statutory Instruments. The Committee reached what I gather is, in the language of the other place, the damning conclusion
	"that it may imperfectly achieve its policy objectives."
	I am told that that is the strongest criticism that the Committee makes against a statutory instrument, and some difficulty may be encountered in getting it through the other place even if some unpleasant collusion happens in this House.

Jo Swinson: We were saved by the other place from the Bill presented by the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (David Maclean). I hope that the other place will not be required to save us again, but if it is, what my hon. Friend has said may provide us with some reassurance.
	It is in all our interests to deal with this issue, to put it behind us, and to get on with restoring public trust. I believe that the best way in which the House can do that is to go down the route of full transparency. I hope that notwithstanding the new categories that are being introduced, once the first tranche of freedom of information expenses have been published, the House will recognise that continuing that practice is the wise thing to do.

Nick Palmer: So far, this has been a constructive debate. Both main Front-Bench speakers gave very helpful summaries of the position.
	Like some other Members who have spoken, I am one of those who told the Whips that they were not prepared to support the Freedom of Information Act exemption, and it may be considered relevant that I would expect the same to happen if the issue arose again. The relationship between the House of Commons and the public is currently like a marriage that has almost broken down. One third of the public do not vote. Of those who do vote, a large number do so on the basis of choosing what they see as the lesser evil. They believe—we are clear that this belief is partly generated by mischievous press seeking to increase readership—that we have let them down on a series of occasions and that a significant number of Members are evading the spirit of the system. That may well not be the case, but the effect is that, like the partners in a marriage in trouble, we have to go further than would normally be necessary to reassure the other party—in this case, the general public—that their suspicions are no longer justified, if they were ever justified. As a result, a system of accounting for expenses that in an organisation where no particular concerns had arisen would be perfectly adequate is no longer adequate. In order to reassure the public, we cannot simply do the minimum that the courts appear to require. We have ostentatiously to go beyond what the courts require, to show that we are open beyond any question of doubt.
	That point is of relevance to the discussion of what happens to receipts in future. It would be a pity if we went away today having resolved the question of all the pending receipts, but still unsure of what we were going to do about receipts submitted tomorrow morning. It would be helpful if the Deputy Leader of the House could reassure us that for the foreseeable future the intention of the House authorities is that if a valid Freedom of Information Act request is made for details of a Member's expenditure, they will be provided, with all the protection for privacy and security we assume always applies, even for quite normal freedom of information applications.
	The problem is not money; it is trust. Very few of my constituents argue that we should not have the legitimate expenses—for second homes, and moderate costs for equipment and staff—that we receive. When I take those who are sceptical through the information point by point, almost every one of them says, "Well, yes, all right, that does seem reasonable. My problem is that people get around it." We do not, therefore, have to adopt a fanatical position and say that every tea bag used is a shameful misuse of public money. What we need to do is go to the point where no reasonable doubt remains, so that if people want to know what we spent money on that came from their pockets, they can find out.
	There are two possible ways to do that. One is that on a regular basis we scan and publish every receipt on the internet. That seems to me to be a slightly exaggerated response. The alternative is that we provide the information to constituents and journalists on request, so that if a Member regularly has an unusually large furniture and fittings bill, a constituent—I think only the Member's own constituents should be able to do this—or journalists can inquire further and ask for a list of what was purchased. I anticipate that the average journalist, who also has limited time available, would not need to interrogate all 650 Members' individual expenses constantly, but would do the work when a query arose.
	I take the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) that we might be able to do things more efficiently if the information were simply transferred to a blank sheet of paper, so that we knew that the furniture expenditure of the hon. Member for X included £175 on this and £43 on that, without having to scan and reproduce the original receipt. The Committee could reasonably examine that issue to work out the most efficient way of providing the information and short-circuiting much of the elaborate redacting process that has been necessary up to now.
	The conclusion that we are reaching today is pretty healthy, in the sense that we have cross-party agreement, although there are small differences of emphasis, that what we need to do is provide detailed summaries, in the 26 categories, of our spending, and further detail as required. When we talk to the wider public about this, we need to accept a certain humility. There has been a sense of self-congratulation in parts of today's debate; people think that we have got this right and everything is perfect. I have contributed to that with my own comments, but we should qualify it by being aware that people are worried and sceptical and that what we are doing is providing necessary reassurance to ensure that they will no longer be worried and sceptical.

John Bercow: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to display considerable humility in this matter, because our rectitude is forced and belated. Does he agree—this is pursuant to what the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) and others have said—that we should robustly defend, for example, the size of the staffing expenditure that some hon. Members have to incur, which is larger than that of others? Their expenditure is greater for one compelling reason: that such Members have—I, like others, must be honest about this—a very much larger case load and it has to be serviced. They should not be in any way embarrassed or defensive about the fact that their allowance claim is that much larger—it is in the public interest and in their constituents' interest.

Nick Palmer: That is entirely right. As has been said, it might well be that this would be clearer for the public if staff were directly employed and if the money did not appear to go through our accounts—we know that in reality it does not. I would not be opposed to Members who can show that they have an exceptionally large case load making a case for additional staff. This is something for another day, but one can debate whether we should be involved in all the individual issues in which we are involved or whether some kind of local ombudsman might be able to take over some of these roles. As long as people see us as the court of appeal when they get stuck in any part of the administration, we have to be able to respond to that. We have to be honest in defending to people the fact that the expenditure is necessary, otherwise they will not get the help.

John Mann: I thank my hon. Friend for making this excellent contribution, but he may be in danger of drifting slightly away from that excellence. His constituents, like all our constituents, know how much he spends on staff; they have been able to see that information and make a judgment on it for a number of years. Is he inundated with letters, e-mails and phone calls every year about how much he spends on staff, or, like me, does he only receive commendations from people for work done and the occasional criticism when something has not been done quickly enough?

Nick Palmer: I think the balance of feedback that most of us receive is positive, but every time our annual expenses are declared, the same point arises and we hear people say, "My God, you have £200,000 coming into your pocket."

John Mann: I do not.

Nick Palmer: My hon. Friend is fortunate if no one says that to him. I have had it said to me, and when I have explained, people have been satisfied, but I suspect that there are some people who have not written to me and are sitting out there grumbling.

Bob Spink: The hon. Gentleman is making some excellent points. Would he like it to be on the record that some hon. Members have high staffing costs because, for example, a key member of their staff who has gone away to have a child must be paid for not working for a year, while someone else must be paid to do the job in their place? The Member's staffing allowance may be £20,000, £30,000 or £35,000 higher for that year.

Nick Palmer: That is a good point. We have the temporary secretarial allowance to pay for a substitute for people who are ill or absent for other legitimate reasons. As the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) said, we must be prepared robustly to defend the necessity of the allowances so that we can do our job.
	I take the point that was made earlier that we should come to one another's support if there is unreasonable nit-picking for partisan purposes. That is difficult during electioneering, but we could at least refrain from adding fuel to the flames when people are being unreasonably criticised.

Hugh Bayley: Is there not a danger of over-egging the pudding? A member of my staff was on maternity leave, and I was in precisely the position that the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) described. In one year, a large five-figure sum was marked down as "other expenditure" and, understandably, the media wanted to know what it was. When I explained, no comment was made.

Nick Palmer: That is right. We could have a profitable discussion with some of the voluntary websites that monitor us and generally do a good job—for example, TheyWorkForYou—about how information is presented so that it is as transparent as they and we wish it to be, and so that cases such as that described by the hon. Gentleman do not cause unnecessary public scepticism.
	Despite kicking and screaming along the way, the House has arrived in the right place, and we have a system of allowances that we can defend collectively and with which we are prepared to be as transparent as anyone could reasonably expect. I support the motions, and I congratulate my colleagues on bringing them forward.

Bob Spink: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer).
	I left the Chamber earlier to take a call from an excellent Canvey Island councillor, Peter May, who told me that, having worked together, we have today secured an offer of a decent home for a very vulnerable constituent. I could not have helped Councillor May to obtain such a result without the staffing, office and expenses made available to me as a Member of Parliament to do my job of helping my constituents and holding the Government to account.
	It is obvious that the harder an MP works, the more he consults, communicates, holds surgeries and helps his constituents, and the more he travels between Westminster and his constituency—hon. Members whose constituencies are close to Westminster have more opportunity to travel daily to meetings in schools and in the evenings—the greater his or her costs will be. There is not necessarily any great credit in being a low-cost Member of Parliament—quite the opposite. In that respect, some of the newspapers have misrepresented the position of MPs and their expenses, and I hope that that will end. However, I will not hold my breath.
	The motions are helpful and comprehensive. They will provide welcome transparency and standardise the publication of information. I also welcome the new and tighter Green Book.
	The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan), speaking from the Conservative Front Bench, made an excellent speech. In fact, he showed a masterly touch despite having been in post for such a short time. He also displayed a lightness of touch, and I enjoyed what he said and how he said it. I congratulate him.
	The hon. Gentleman told the House that in political life, one can do the decent thing, only for advantage to be taken of one. He is so right. I was a victim of that. When I resigned from the Tory party, it made baseless and rather nasty comments about my employment of my staff. I put that right, and the party paid heavily in court for that mischief. Category (d) in motion 2 refers to staffing expenditure. I voluntarily published details of my staffing expenditure before the arguments kicked off about the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Derek Conway) in February or March last year. I gave full details of my staff, who they were and what my relationship with them was, including my employment of my ex-wife, whom I had divorced five years earlier. I published their job specifications and their salary bands in detail, because I thought that the public had the right to know what use I was making of public money, but that information was misrepresented and used against me in an offensive and unfair manner. I was deeply angry about that, until of course the judgment, which left me in pocket on the matter.
	I demanded that the House authorities perform a full audit of my staffing arrangements, including the three staff who had had accusations made against them. The House authorities resisted that demand at first, but in the end they agreed. The audit took about six months, and it was a backward-looking audit, unlike the instructions that the Conservative party gave its MPs—that they should clean up their act and publish information looking forward. That was deceitful, and they were pretending to be open and transparent when they were not. The audit examined a three-month period and found that the member of staff who was the principal victim of the accusations had, working from her home office, sent an average of 107 emails every working day, in addition to her responsibilities for the diary, snail mail, the telephone and other tasks.
	The audit report was dated 7 October and confirmed to me that
	"your arrangements for the staff mentioned above"—
	the three members of staff in question—
	"comply with the primary requirements of the Green Book set out on the first page of this letter.
	The Personnel Advice Service has also reported to me that all three of your staff appear committed, hard-working and possessing at this time the necessary skills and competences for the work undertaken."
	It is my understanding that no other Member has had such a backward audit of their staff. I am delighted that I have had such an audit, although it would not have been necessary but for the mischief caused by others, who brought the House into disrepute as a result.

John Mann: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and congratulate him on his speech. Has he received an apology from the Conservative Front Benchers for their actions?

Bob Spink: It is funny that the hon. Gentleman should mention that. Not only did I get every penny of my costs—[Hon. Members: "How much?] A very substantial— [ Interruption. ]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order.

Bob Spink: I did receive a written apology, but I shall return to the subject of the debate.
	The communications expenditure is covered under paragraph (2)(c) of motion 2. Questions come in from my constituency every week from vexatious people, as they do for other hon. Members, so I want to put it on record that although I did not need to have my publications checked, I have always had each one checked and approved before publishing them. I am happy about that, and I think that that system is essential to ensure that the public can have confidence that Members are not using the communications allowance improperly. I do not think that Members are.
	Paragraph (2)(a)(ii) of motion 2 covers "office equipment and supplies". It would be helpful in the future to consider including petty cash in that category as an individual item. A Member can take up to £240 in petty cash during a year and that will need to be scrutinised. In fact, petty cash should be audited. Records of every penny going in and out should be kept in a petty cash book, as they are in my office, and it should be audited at least once in a Parliament. The public deserve to see what petty cash is going through Members' offices, too.
	Paragraph (2)(b) covers the accommodation expenditure. I believe that service charges should be split from the reference to
	"household costs...utilities, telecommunications, maintenance and repairs".
	Service charges in London can be very high. They can amount to £2,000 or £3,000—or even £5,000 or £6,000—and that sum could be a blanket over any revealing information that the public may want to see to compare what Members are spending on utility bills. Separating out service charges would be a good idea, and I am grateful that the Leader of the House accepted that amendment in principle and thought it was a sound measure. I encourage her to bring it forward at some time in the future.
	Let me move on to motion 5, which will set up a new Committee. The work involved is already being done in the House. I am sure that the new Committee will do it more formally but, essentially, as we heard earlier, the work proposed is the same as that which is being done. We have not been given a global sum for what the new Committee might cost. I think it might cost several tens of thousands—if not a few hundreds of thousands—of pounds each year. The House deserves to know what the Committee might cost.
	In this economic climate, as everyone is tightening their belts and wondering whether they will have a job or a salary next year, why should we be giving one of our colleagues—even though I am sure that that colleague will be a good chap—an extra £14,000 Committee Chairman's salary for doing what is already being done free of charge? If the Deputy Leader of the House wants to intervene, I shall give way to him.

Chris Bryant: I was only sitting forward. The motion does not provide for the Chairman to be paid at all.

Bob Spink: I am grateful for that clarification. Is the Deputy Leader of the House confirming that that Committee Chairman will not receive a Select Committee Chairman's salary? I would be prepared to give way if he wished to clarify that point.

Chris Bryant: I will be winding up.

Bob Spink: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I do not wish to go against the mood of the House or to be pernickety. That is not the point, but I think we must be careful about how the action that we take looks to the public. That is what this is all about.
	I thank you for your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker. We should not fear transparency. We should welcome public scrutiny, but we should also expect the press to act responsibly. As one Labour Member said earlier—I forget who it was—we should make sure that we do not transgress by irresponsibly seeking to score political points against other hon. Members in a way that is unfair and brings this House into disrepute.

Michael Jabez Foster: I think that members of the public who watch this debate should be satisfied with the fervour for openness expressed by every hon. Member who has spoken. The one thing about which we, as parliamentarians, have to be very careful is not to assume bad faith on the part of colleagues. It is very easy to do that for political purposes, and it may be that we can avoid that by ensuring greater openness in these matters than ever before.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) may have suggested that withdrawing the statutory instrument due to be debated today was somehow a sign of bad faith on the part of members of the Government Front Bench, but I think they have simply taken a pragmatic view. The statutory instrument was itself pragmatic, in the sense that it was designed to see whether some of the tensions could be resolved without giving way to those who wish to refuse disclosure.
	As we heard earlier, exemptions from the Freedom of Information Act may yet be granted in respect of details that should be avoided, such as personal addresses. However, I think it was right to withdraw the statutory instrument, for the simple reason that it sent the wrong message.
	The message that has been sent out today by hon. Members of all parties is that we want to offer the greatest possible openness to our constituents. The issue is how we can do that in the most pragmatic way, without hiding anything. I must say that I see a problem in putting every receipt on the internet, but I think that the price is one that we must be willing to pay.
	As has been noted, such an approach will cost something like £3 million. Any savings will be minimal but I guess that that £3 million, if it satisfies the public that we are doing the right things, is something that we will have to accept. Moreover, as other colleagues have observed, it may not be a cost that is repeated as time goes by.
	Like other hon. Members, I think we should be proud of what we do for the money that we get for supporting our constituents. Last year, as always and in common with another colleague, I made all my expenses clear to my constituents. I pointed out something that people often do not know, which is that it costs about £250,000 a year to keep an MP. That sum is made up of salary, pension contributions, the office costs allowance and so on, and it works out that keeping their MP costs everyone who lives in my constituency £2.50 a year, or 5p a week. Some people may say that I am not worth 5p, but no one in my constituency asked for their money back when they were offered it. I very much hope that that is indicative across the piece, and that most constituents regard their MPs as good value.
	However, is it possible to satisfy requirements for openness without incurring even more cost to the public? I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer), who said that we should ask our constituents what they want to know about their MP's expenditure. One of my constituents took me up on my offer to let him look at my books. He went through all the receipts for 2005-06 and 2004-05, after which he said that he was wholly satisfied and did not want to do any more. However, I said, "No, you've come here to see the last five years so you're going to sit there and do it."  [ Interruption. ] Well, I let him off at 2001-02. But the truth is that if we as local parliamentarians are willing to open our books locally—we should be prepared to do so—the wider concerns might be not just appeased but somehow reduced.
	My guess is that, whatever we do, the media have it in for us. There is no way we can wholly satisfy the media. Why? Because we are well paid; it is not a bad job; and we get relatively good support although we work extremely hard for it. The truth is that we earn above the average and we have a better standard of living than many—indeed, most—of our constituents. Whether we earn less here than we did in other jobs is irrelevant. The fact is that people think that we are well looked after and that our expenses are very generous, and all the rest of it. So I do not think that we can win the argument that we are somehow hard done by, but does it matter?
	The truth is that our task is to do the best that we can for our constituents. We need our allowances to do that. If it costs something to open our books, although that may be a waste of money in the sense that it saves nothing, and if it satisfies the public that we really are the hon. Members that we call one another, it would be worth while, and motions before us today go in that direction.

Michael Spicer: I want to ask two very short questions of the Minister. Before doing so, may I apologise to the House for unavoidably not being present during the first part of the debate?
	My first question concerns an appeal by a Member under the Green Book rules when he finds himself in disagreement with the finance officers. I very much approve of the Green Book—in fact, I am bound to do so, because I helped to draft some of it—which says:
	"If the issue is not resolved, the Member may ask the Finance and Services Committee to rule."
	The Finance and Services Committee does not meet very often at the moment. I do not think that its Chairman particularly wants the onerous task that would be involved. Certainly, the 1922 committee and I believe very much that a Committee on Members' Allowances would be the right Committee to undertake that appeals task. I think that I am right in saying that the Government agree with that but have not so far found it possible to amend the Green Book to accommodate that view. I think that things were done in a bit of a hurry; those words were included to fill the gap. I hope that the Minister might be able to say something about that in his reply. I realise that he may be in some difficulty at the moment, because he may not have a settled policy on the mechanism, but would he tell us whether the Government intend to do that and, if so, how it is to be done and when—or at least let us know at a later date? I just wanted to flag up that issue.
	My second question is perhaps even more difficult for the Minister. If someone does an FOI trawl as a result of the motions today, what advice is the Minister getting on the reaction of the courts, given that we will accept the motions and that we will have the Green Book, an audit system and much greater transparency? Is he getting any advice? Does he have any view, or even any hopes, on whether the courts would take a different view in the future than in the past, given the greater transparency and strictures that will be introduced by the motions? I should be grateful for answers to both those questions.

Shailesh Vara: May I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to this afternoon's debate—all those who have made interventions, as well as all those Back Benchers who have made speeches? It is not usual when making a winding-up speech to compliment those who have opened the debate, but with your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make an exception to that because both opening speeches were excellent. I give credit to the Leader of the House not only for setting the right tone for the debate, but for the enormously generous time that she gave to all those hon. Members who wished to intervene on her speech. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan) on his maiden speech in his new role as shadow Leader of the House. He, too, contributed enormously to making sure that the right tone was set.
	The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), who is not in the Chamber, spoke of possible dark forces disrupting the debate, but I am pleased to say that as a result of the tone set by the two opening speeches, if there were any dark forces, they certainly did not see any light. We as an institution are all the better for it, as the public watch us while we debate this important issue.
	This is a crucial debate that strikes at the very heart of trust and confidence in Members of Parliament. It has generated a fair amount of heat, both inside and outside Parliament. I hope that at the end of it, there will be a fair amount of light—light that leaves no doubt that we understand the public's deep distrust about the way in which we use taxpayers' money, light that makes it absolutely clear that we want greater transparency regarding our costs and allowances, and light that will convey the important message that the motions before us go some way to trying to restore the public confidence that the House so desperately needs, and the confidence that its servants need.
	Let us be clear about one thing, though. Of course it is right that we should claim expenses to carry out our duties as Members of Parliament, and it is important that we should have a staffing allowance—a point referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow). We should also be allowed to claim expenses for living away from home, travel and the like. We cannot have a system in which only the wealthy can afford to become Members of Parliament. That would be the consequence if we were not allowed to claim expenses and allowances.
	It is important that we claim those expenses and allowances in a way that is transparent and seen to be transparent. Moreover, the processes that we use must be properly regulated, and must be seen to be properly regulated. That point was referred to by the hon. Members for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) and for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer). The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) made suggestions about the mechanics of disclosure, and I hope that those responsible for implementing the process will take note of what he said.
	We support the proposals to break down Members' expenditure into more categories, providing greater detail for the public and clarity on what Members spend their allowances on. Moreover, we support the new version of the Green Book; the guiding principles, derived from the code of conduct for Members of Parliament, underpin the spirit of the expenses and allowances regime. The hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) referred to one of those principles when he spoke of the necessary expenditure principle.
	It is right that the book should be brought more up to date—for example, by ensuring proper reference to "civil partners" alongside the usual reference to "spouses." The public will also be pleased to see the proposals for better auditing and assurance. The two-pronged approach being taken—on the one hand by the National Audit Office, and on the other through internal audit, carried out by the House's auditors in conjunction with a team from PricewaterhouseCoopers—should lead to greater thoroughness in policing how we spend taxpayers' money.
	I accept that some Members have concerns about the financial proportionality of the audit proposals, expressing the view that the cost of carrying out such a detailed scrutiny of expenses is far in excess of possible risks of abuse. It is fair to say that increasing the rigour of the audit regime will mean an increase in costs, but we must not consider that in isolation. We must also consider the need to restore the reputation of the House—a point touched on by the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Michael Jabez Foster). With that in mind, I believe that there is proportionality and proper balance as regards costs and the end results.
	The motion proposes that the Advisory Panel on Members' Allowances, which meets in private monthly and advises the Speaker and the Members Estimate Committee, be replaced by a new Select Committee on Members' Allowances. That Select Committee, with all the powers that it would have, would certainly help demonstrate to the public the importance that we place on the subject—again, it is a move in the right direction.
	On the other measures put before us, I should say that my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) made a valid point about the possibility of work duplication. If the proposals are passed today, and I hope and expect that they will be, that will need to be looked into. It is always a pleasure to hear my right hon. Friend's contributions; his quality and experience only add to the general quality of the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Sir Michael Spicer) raised two questions, and I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House takes those on board; I look forward to hearing what he has to say.
	It cannot be right that we expect public bodies, individuals and other organisations to have levels of transparency and openness higher than our own. It cannot be right for there to be one set of rules for the public and another for us, or for us not to make the necessary changes to bring our own standards of audit and transparency into line with 21st-century best practice.

Julian Lewis: I entirely endorse the point that my hon. Friend has just made, but will he take this opportunity to put one thing, which has involved the public being misled by the press, on the record? Not everybody in a senior position paid from the public purse has a publication regime that extends down to individual receipts. That has not been made sufficiently clear. The question is whether we have a sufficiently rigorous auditing process, and that is what we are achieving today.

Shailesh Vara: I agree with my hon. Friend, and the issue will certainly become clearer as the procedures are put in place. I should also say that the vast majority of Members claim their expenses properly and legitimately; we are where we are because of a tiny minority. It is important for the public to recognise that we have a duty to our constituents and the country, and that we claim money to allow us to do our duties properly.
	We must subject ourselves to the same sort of regime that we expect to apply to others. Our procedures must be easy to understand and unambiguous; they must inspire confidence rather than derision from the public. The importance of this debate must not be underestimated by anyone here today. Nor should we underestimate the strength of feeling that there will be among the public and media if we do not accept the motions today. Accepting them will be a positive step in trying to restore the House's reputation. I urge all Members to support them.

Chris Bryant: The hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara) complimented the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House of Commons, the two main Front-Bench spokesmen, and I would like to compliment him in turn on his important speech. He raised one issue around which the whole House can unite—if there were no means of meeting our legitimate expenditure from the public purse, only the wealthy could afford to be Members of Parliament. That would be wholly inappropriate.
	That point is brought home to me particularly by the fact that a friend of mine, a member of Rhondda Labour party, has a letter written by William Abraham, Rhondda's first Member of Parliament; he was known as "Mabon". He was a great figure, who sat for many years in the 19th and 20th centuries. The letter is to the trade unions in the Rhondda, thanking them for paying his expenses while he was living in London as their Member of Parliament; it was before Members were even paid. The issue has been around for more than 100 years. It is only because trade unions were prepared to meet the legitimate expenses of the person who had to come from the Rhondda up to London that the area ever had representation at all. The issue that that raises needs to be at the forefront of our minds.
	I will deal first with issues to do with the publication scheme. It is a delight to have back the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath). He is a more substantial figure, at least physically, than his predecessor, and he can match him word for word. [Hon. Members: "Oh!"] I am sorry—I am being somewhat cruel.
	The hon. Gentleman suggested that it would be perverse for us to introduce this publication scheme because it would mean that we would end up with two such schemes. He asked, as did the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Sir Michael Spicer), about the legal advice. Nothing that we are considering today changes the legal obligations that are on the House authorities as the data holders. It is for them to comply with the legal obligations on them, which are to disclose information down to receipt level—I use the phrase "down to receipt level" precisely; it does not necessarily mean receipts—and they will do that. The publication scheme that we have brought to the House will give the public the information they need in a form they will find useful. It is with that in mind that we proposed it, not as an alternative way of meeting our legal obligations. The publication scheme is different from the publication of redacted receipts. It will provide information in a form that shows, across headings and over the years, information that will be useful to the public. Indeed, many people may find it a more useful way of looking at it than other ways.

Michael Jabez Foster: For clarification, what does "down to receipt level" mean, if it does not include receipts?

Chris Bryant: It is for the House authorities to comply precisely with what is required of them under law, and that means that they will publish receipts. I hope that that answers my hon. Friend's question.
	The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton, whom we all welcome to his new responsibilities, referred to his oil bills—as opposed to his oil payments. That resonates with me because there is no gas in my home either; I have oil as well. He asked about the categories. If he took a bit more time to read the motion, he would note that it says:
	"The Committee on Members' Allowances shall keep the categories listed in paragraph (2) above under review and may modify them from time to time as the committee may"
	feel appropriate. The hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) also asked about precisely what categories we have. We do not want to fix our mind for ever, and that is why we tabled the motion as we did.
	The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton asked whether we would charge for information. I do not think that the House should charge, and we have no plans to do so, although in the end it will be up to the House authorities to make that decision. He referred to receipts going back to 2005. The motion relates to 2005—the year of the last general election—onwards because it seemed a bit odd to have a publication scheme for people who are no longer Members of this House. In fact, the House has information going back to 2004-05, so that is also part of the legal obligation on the House authorities.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) referred to dark forces, as did the hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire. I thought that that was a slightly unfortunate phrase, because I honestly do not believe that there are dark forces in this House, merely differences of view about how we should progress on this issue. He cast a rather dark perspective on the debate, so I am not moving forward with him on that.
	The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson)—to whom I was very rude in the Adjournment debate before Christmas, for which I do not apologise—asked when the process that the House authorities are going through will be completed. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, rightly, that there is a hope and an expectation that we will be able to turn around within a month the business of when this is given to hon. Members and they can confirm it. I know that some hon. Members have had to go through a similar process for freedom of information requests, quite separately, and it has taken three months for the process to be agreed because of internal disputes.

Dan Norris: As one of the hon. Members who has been through that process, I confirm that it does take a long time—much longer than a month would allow. I hope that my hon. Friend will revisit that process. It is like a game of ping-pong. We give information to the people in question and they carry out the changes that we hope they are meant to carry out. Sometimes they miss them, and it is necessary to check the details again, and then we often see things that we did not notice at first, such as an address, or postcodes on receipts that companies include in the reference number. It is a complicated and time-consuming process.

Chris Bryant: I hear what my hon. Friend says. Obviously it is in everyone's interest—that of all Members, and the public—that we do things as swiftly and accurately as possible, and I know that that is what the House wants.

Jo Swinson: I would just like a slight clarification. I appreciate that there is a degree of uncertainty about how long it will take Members to deal with the information. Do we have a rough idea of when Members will get that information so that they can start looking at it—what month they might receive it in, for example?

Chris Bryant: I do not have that information, I am afraid, and it is a matter for the House authorities. They are the data holders, and they have to progress the process.
	My hon. Friends the Members for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) and for Hastings and Rye (Michael Jabez Foster) made strong speeches in favour of transparency, and everyone in the House shares their concern to ensure that we have an adequate level of transparency that meets the public need.
	I now come to several matters relating to the new Committee. The membership of the Committee will be a matter for the political parties in the usual way, as is the case for all Committees of the House, and for the Committee of Selection. It is important that we acknowledge that there will be no Government majority on the Committee, which is why it has eight members, putting it virtually in parallel with the Committee on Standards and Privileges. It is important, as the Leader of the House said, that we do not bypass the Committee on Standards and Privileges. Nothing that we are saying today bypasses it, or obviates its role.
	It is also important, as several hon. Members have said, that we have a robust audit. Everyone has said that the new system of audit we introduce will be substantially more robust than that of the past. It will be risk-based and it will ensure that wherever there is an element of risk, a proper audit is done so that the public can be assured of value for money. My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York—[Hon. Members: "City of York"] Sorry, my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley)—quite a different person. He dresses quite differently.
	My hon. Friend made an important point, and I hope that hon. Members will bear with me on this, about the fundamental principles that underlie the claiming of all expenses. He read out only one of the fundamental principles in the new Green Book, but the others are important and should be referred to directly:
	"Claims should be above reproach and must reflect actual usage of the resources being claimed...Allowances are reimbursed only for the purpose of a Member carrying out his or her parliamentary duties; claims cannot relate to party political activity of any sort, nor must any claim provide a benefit to a party political organisation; it is not permissible for a Member to claim under any parliamentary allowance for anything that the Member is claiming from any other source; Members must ensure that claims do not give rise to, or give the appearance of giving rise to, an improper personal financial benefit to themselves or anyone else; Members are committed to openness about what expenditure has been incurred and for what purposes; individual Members take personal responsibility for all expenses incurred, for making claims and for keeping records, even if the administration of claims is delegated by them to others; the requirement of ensuring value for money is central in claiming for accommodation, goods or services—Members should avoid purchases which could be seen as extravagant or luxurious; claims must be supported by documentary evidence".
	I believe that those are the principles to which the whole House must hold firm.

Hugh Bayley: Like other hon. Members, I subscribe to those principles, but I argued that if we published expenditure on fixtures, fittings and furnishings in aggregate, we would not have the openness that is required. It is stated that Members
	"are committed to openness about what expenditure has been incurred and for what purposes".
	Will my hon. Friend comment on the need in come cases to provide information that goes beyond the 26 specified categories?

Chris Bryant: I hope that my hon. Friend's mind can be put at rest, because the House authorities will be publishing receipts going back to 2004, so the issue is firmly dealt with. He suggested that somebody might be claiming for a television costing £1,500, and that that claim might have been met by the House. I think that that is a red herring, because I do not think that the House would meet that claim under the old or new scheme, and quite rightly so.

Julian Lewis: In that area of debate, may I flag up a matter that I thought was extremely unfair to the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Margaret Beckett)? She put in a claim in relation to her accommodation for something to do with her garden. The claim was turned down, yet the information that she had tried to get it but been refused was released, much to the joy of the press, who proceeded to criticise her for having asked. Surely what should be revealed is the expenses that are granted. It should not be revealed if somebody asks whether they can claim for something, is told that it is not appropriate and says, "Fine, I will let it go." That situation was most unfair to the right hon. Lady.

Chris Bryant: That specific issue is a matter for the House authorities, both as the data holder and as the body that did not pay the original claim. However, the public expect us to provide a clear set of rules that mean that such things are not in doubt.
	Several hon. Members have, in one way or another, asked whether we should be moaning about the situation in which we find ourselves. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) referred to how it often feels unfair to us that certain expenditure is referred to as our expenses, particularly given that the largest figure in our annual expenditure is staffing costs. Perhaps 50 years ago, when an MP might have visited their constituency twice a year, and the band played when they got there and played even louder when they left, they were able to survive without staffing. Today, the understandable expectation is that Members will be able to respond to letters, e-mails and every other form of inquiry very swiftly. I know that all hon. Members try to do that, and we would not be able to do it without our staffing expenditure.
	I remember setting up my office when I was first elected in 2001. Buying desks for my staff was quite an expensive business, and at the end of the year I had to pay a very significant tax bill for that benefit, even though it did not particularly feel like a benefit to me. It felt like a benefit to my staff.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer) mentioned the fact that journalists might inadvertently, or perhaps advertently, tend to criticise the most diligent Members by attacking those who use their allowances to the full to provide a swift and effective service to their constituents. The hon. Member for Castle Point seemed to suggest that we should invert the list when considering Members' effectiveness, and that the cheapest MPs are the least diligent. I do not know whether anybody would want to go that far, but nearly all MPs now seek to do a job that is entirely different from the one that was done 30 years ago. That is why it is important that we have a completely different structure of Members' allowances and expenditure.
	Every MP and every constituency is completely different, with different competing needs. In my constituency, very few housing-related issues arise because more than 80 per cent. of my constituents live in their own home, but many issues of miners' compensation arise. Other MPs have a completely different pattern of issues coming to them.
	I do not believe that we should moan about the situation that we find ourselves in. As several hon. Members said, it is a great privilege to sit in this House and represent our constituents. Nor, however, should we be ashamed about the expenditure that we wholly legitimately incur.
	When I was elected, there was no transparency about Members' expenditure. There was no audit and there were no rules, or minimal rules, and that was in 2001. Indeed, when I rang the Fees Office and asked what to do about my additional costs allowance, I was told to divide it in 12 and submit a form. I chose not to do that but to submit receipts. We have moved forward, and that is vital.
	I believe that we are taking significant additional steps forward: through tougher rules on contracts to ensure that all employees are doing the job that they are meant to do, and on receipts to ensure that people are claiming what they are meant to claim, and through a robust independent audit, introducing the National Audit Office into the running of our finances for the first time and enabling it to do a full-scale audit. We are also providing for far greater transparency through the publication scheme and what the House authorities will do in future.
	Again, I welcome the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton to his new post. We have already heard about the man to man chats between the Home Secretary and the Leader of the House.

Michael Spicer: Will the Deputy Leader of the House answer the question about appeals?

Chris Bryant: I am sorry, I forgot to mention that. As the chairman of the 1922 committee said, the Green Book states, as the Members Estimate Committee agreed, that appeals should go to the Finance and Services Committee. There is a slight element of uncertainty because the Members Estimate Committee relates to theI look forward to many man to man chats, and I hope that all hon. Members will support the package of motions that we are considering.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	(1) That, subject to the provisions of paragraph (2) below, for the purpose of the publication scheme adopted and maintained by the House under section 19 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, such information about payments made to, or on behalf of, hon. Members which is already published routinely in accordance with the scheme shall continue to be published;
	(2) In addition, information relating to Members' expenditure from the beginning of the current Parliament shall be published in relation to each financial year, to the extent that such information is separately identifiable, under the following categories:
	(a) Administrative and Office Expenditure:
	(i) accommodation costs for offices, surgeries, etc;
	(ii) office equipment and supplies;
	(iii) telephones and other telecommunications;
	(iv) professional fees and charges;
	(v) agency and other staff costs;
	(vi) travel costs;
	(vii) utilities;
	(b) Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure:
	(i) mortgage interest;
	(ii) rent;
	(iii) hotel costs;
	(iv) council tax;
	(v) fixtures, fittings and furnishings;
	(vi) subsistence;
	(vii) other household costs, including service charges, utilities, telecommunications, maintenance and repairs;
	(c) Communications Expenditure:
	(i) websites;
	(ii) reports and surveys;
	(iii) delivery charges, postage and stationery;
	(iv) advertising;
	(v) equipment;
	(d) Staffing Expenditure;
	(e) Travel Expenditure in relation to travel by Members:
	(i) car, including third party vehicle rental and mileage;
	(ii) rail;
	(iii) air;
	(iv) other UK and European travel;
	(f) Resettlement Grant;
	(g) Winding-up Expenditure;
	(3) The Committee on Members' Allowances shall keep the categories listed in paragraph (2) above under review and may modify them from time to time as the committee may think necessary or desirable in the interests of clarity, consistency, accountability and effective administration, and conformity with current circumstances.

Members' allowances (green book)

Resolved,
	That this House approves the Guide to Members' Allowances (the Green Book), published as Annex 1 to the First Report of the House of Commons Members Estimate Committee (House of Commons Paper No. 142) and endorses the Principles set out in Part 1 of the Green Book as the basis for all claims made by Members;
	That the rules set out in the Green Book shall govern all expenditure on Members' allowances with respect to all claims for expenditure arising on or after 1 April 2009;
	That the Members Estimate Committee shall carry out a review of the provisions of the resolutions of this House relating to such expenditure, make such modifications to them as are necessary to ensure that they are consistent with the provisions in the Green Book, and report to the House; and
	That this House thanks Ms Kay Carberry CBE, nominated by the Trades Union Congress, and Mr Keith Bradford, nominated by the Confederation of British Industry, for having acted as the Speaker's external appointees to the Advisory Panel on Members' Allowances.— (Ms Harman.)

Members' Allowances (audit and Assurance)

Resolved,
	That this House approves the arrangements for the audit and assurance of Members' allowances set out in the report of the Members Estimate Audit Committee to the House of Commons Members Estimate Committee, published as Annex 3 to the First Report of the House of Commons Members Estimate Committee (House of Commons Paper No. 142).— (Ms Harman.)

Committee on Members' Allowances

Resolved,
	That the following new Standing Order and amendments to the Standing Orders and Resolutions of the House be made:
	 A. New Standing Order 
	(1) There shall be a select committee, called the Committee on Members' Allowances,
	(a) to advise the House of Commons Members Estimate Committee on the discharge of its functions; and
	(b) to advise the Speaker, the Members Estimate Committee and the Leader of the House on the potential development of the arrangements made by or under the Resolutions in force from time to time regarding Members' allowances &c;
	(2) The committee shall consist of eight members;
	(3) Unless the House otherwise orders, each Member nominated to the committee shall continue to be a member of it for the remainder of the Parliament;
	(4) The committee shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to appoint specialist advisers and to report from time to time.
	 B. Amendment to Standing Order No. 152D 
	In Standing Order No. 152D, leave out lines 23 to 25;
	 C. Amendment to the Resolution of the House of 5 July 2001: 
	 Members' Allowances, Insurance &c. 
	Paragraph (5) of the Resolution of the House of 5 July 2001 relating to Members' Allowances, Insurance &c. shall cease to have effect.— (Ms Harman.)

MINISTERIAL ANSWERS TO PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONS

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn— (Chris Mole.)

Norman Baker: I am grateful not only for the opportunity to raise an important matter, but for the elongated time in which to do so, although I assure the Deputy Leader of the House that I do not intend to filibuster. If I had any such intention, I would have filibustered on the previous item of business.
	I raise the matter in a spirit that may sometimes be critical, but which is also intended to be constructive, as I hope the Deputy Leader of the House will accept. Let me take him back to 1997, when the Labour party assumed office. At that time, there was revulsion in the country at some of the unsatisfactory and unwelcome practices and the unnecessary secrecy that occurred under the previous Government. The revulsion against that method of government was no small contributor to the significant majority that Labour enjoyed in 1997, or indeed to the significant increase in the number of seats that the Liberal Democrats gained at that time.
	As a reaction, after that seminal election, we saw the introduction of a more open method of government. We saw, for example, the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and the amendment of practices relating to parliamentary questions. A small example relates to the number of questions that can legitimately be denied an answer on the basis of commercial confidentiality. An analysis of the number of times that that reason was used under the Conservatives before 1997 can be demonstrated by a steadily rising graph, but that graph drops dramatically after 1997 when the Minister's Government came to power. I have to say, however, that the graph has subsequently risen to the level that it had reached under the Conservatives. It is difficult to imagine that there were fewer matters of commercial confidentiality in 1998 than at any other point, and there is rightly a suspicion that the number of times when that excuse, or reason, for not giving a full answer has been given is related not simply to the existence of commercial confidentiality but to the difficulty or expediency involved in not giving an answer for political reasons.
	Similarly, the Minister will know that another reason for not answering a question is that to do so would incur disproportionate cost. That is a perfectly legitimate reason when properly deployed. However, it was over-deployed and misused under the previous Conservative regime. When I was a researcher in this place, back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I recall that one Labour MP, who was fed up with that particular excuse being used by the then Prime Minister, Mrs. Thatcher, asked her on how many occasions in the previous 12 months she had answered a question using the formula, "This question could be answered only at disproportionate cost." She answered: "This question could be answered only at disproportionate cost."

Chris Bryant: She had a sense of humour, then.

Norman Baker: Well, someone in No. 10 had a sense of humour at that time.
	The issue of openness is crucial for democracy. We touched on it in the previous debate about MPs' expenses. After all my years in politics, both nationally and in local councils, my strong view is that being open and accountable for our actions is not only a requirement for all of us but also leads to better government. It is in the interests of the ruling party or parties for there to be openness. Sometimes, it does not seem that way, but in the medium to long term, that is undoubtedly the case.
	I am sorry to say that, over the past 11 years, there has been some slippage in that openness, accountability and willingness to answer questions frankly. I suspect that that is not unusual in a Government. The longer they are in power, the more they feel responsible for themselves and the more they feel an obligation to hide things. It is perhaps a human reaction, but it is also a wrong reaction, because once they hide something, they then have to hide the fact that they have hidden it, and there begins a vicious circle that can end up with a Government becoming defensive and not releasing information that should properly in the public domain, even though they had started out in a different vein. As the Minister will know, some of the most damaging stories about a Government, of whatever colour, relate not to what has been concealed but to the fact that it has been concealed. I suggest to him, in the abstract, that being open is in the interests of the Government as well as of the public and of the country.
	Unfortunately, we are seeing a trend, in that questions that would previously have been answered are no longer being answered. In about 1998, I asked the former Department of Transport—or perhaps it was the Department of Energy, in those days—about the carriage of radioactive material by air. I asked how many flights carried radioactive material, and I was given a specific figure. When I asked that question again recently, I was told that those figures were not collected. I cannot believe that in the past 10 years, the Government have decided not to collect those figures, but that is what I was told.
	The answers to questions can be misleading. A Plaid Cymru Member in the previous Parliament asked how much nuclear waste was carried by air, and he was told that none was carried in that way. When he mentioned that to me, expressing his surprise, I told him that I happened to know the trick: he needed to ask about spent nuclear fuel. If he had asked about that, he would have had a rather different answer. It was quite clear that he was asking that question for the purpose of determining the safety and environmental implications of carrying such materials by air. The answer that he was given might have been technically correct, but it was totally misleading. I do not believe that that is a proper way to proceed.
	Back in 24 April 1998 and on this very spot, I held an Adjournment debate entitled "The Prime Minister's Press Office". It was a Friday afternoon—I remember it very well, because the House was empty and the Press Gallery was full—and it was about the activities of Mr. Alastair Campbell. I suggest to the Minister, with all due humility, that that debate—what I said as well as what was said in response on behalf of the Government—makes quite interesting reading today. I said on that occasion that just because the Government have levers available to pull, and just because they have people who are very good at pulling levers—as they did that year with Alastair Campbell; he was exceptionally good at his job, whatever one thinks of him—it did not mean that it was in the interests of the country to pull that lever as far as it would go. Neither was it in the interests of the Government to do so. I said that the Government have to exercise some self-restraint and sometimes have to accept that information needs to be released, even though it is not in the short-term interests of the Government to do so. That is part of the democratic system. If we move away from that, we will be in some difficulty. There are examples, I am afraid, where we have moved away from that, although there are also examples of good practice to set against it.
	The principles of freedom of information, which the Minister and his party accepted in passing the Freedom of Information Act 2000, include the public's having a right to information about the activities of public bodies, most notably the Government and their agencies, along with local councils and other such bodies. That was a sea change brought in by the Government, which I very much welcome. By definition, the Government also accept that material that the public had a right to should be released, irrespective of whether the Government wanted it to be kept secret, if the reasons for doing so were not ones specifically set out in the 2000 Act relating to matters of national security and so forth. In other words, the Government accepted the principle that material would be released as a right, even if it were harmful to the Government's own political interests. That was a very brave and correct thing to do. However, it does not seem to me that the principle in that Act has been followed through in the practices of all Ministers when they answer parliamentary questions.
	I would be pleased if the Minister were kind enough to answer one particular question, which is whether for legal purposes Ministers regard parliamentary questions as effectively freedom of information requests. In other words, do they make the same assessment of whether information should be released as they would have if the information had been requested in a freedom of information request? Alternatively, are MPs entitled to more information in their parliamentary answers than such requests would generate—or, indeed, less? What is the exact relationship between a freedom of information request and a parliamentary answer?
	As I said, there are examples of good practice as well as bad practice in government. I am not attempting to smear every Government with the same brush. I refer the Minister back to a question I asked in 2001 that received considerable coverage at the time. I asked the Home Secretary
	"what representations he has received on the applications by G. P. Hinduja and S. P. Hinduja for British citizenship"—[ Official Report, 18 January 2001; Vol. 361, c. 351W.]
	from the Member representing Hartlepool at the time—now Lord Mandelson. That question was answered properly and in full by the Home Office Minister at the time—under instructions, it turned out, from the present Justice Secretary. At least partly as a consequence, the then Member for Hartlepool had to resign his ministerial office. If I asked such a question in similar circumstances today, I just wonder whether the answer would be as full and open as that one was, or whether some formula would be applied to prevent the information—legitimately asked for and provided on that occasion—from coming out. I hope the Minister can assure me that it would, but I am going on to explain why I believe such answers are not being provided these days in the same way.
	I said that there is a patchwork of answers across government in terms of ministerial responses. That is quite true. Let me say that the present Justice Secretary, for example, has always been absolutely straight down the line, whatever Department he is representing, about answering parliamentary questions, irrespective of whether they are detrimental in the short term to the Government. He regards it as his duty to provide answers to parliamentary questions, and I pay tribute to him for it.
	Some Departments regularly produce proper information. During my time in the House I have found that the Ministry of Defence, for example, has almost invariably provided proper answers to parliamentary questions, and, on the occasions when it has not done so, has correctly stated why the answers cannot be provided in the form that the Member has requested. I consider it a proper way of dealing with things to explain why answers cannot be provided, if that is the case—for reasons of commercial confidentiality, for instance, or because an answer might threaten relations with another country. There are legitimate reasons why answers sometimes cannot be given and, as I have said, the Ministry of Defence generally either answers questions in full or gives the responses that I have described. So there is good practice in Government but, I am sorry to say, there is also bad practice and that, unfortunately, is the nub of the issue.
	The worst practice, I am afraid, relates to the Prime Minister, and to the answers that he signs off to parliamentary written questions addressed to him. I should like to think that the Prime Minister was not personally responsible. I should like to think that it was a matter for the spotty apparatchiks who occupy the back of No. 10 and draft the answers for him.

Chris Bryant: They are not spotty.

Norman Baker: The Minister says they are not spotty; presumably that means that they are indeed apparatchiks.
	I should like to think that the Prime Minister was not primarily responsible—after all, he is a very busy man—and that he merely signed the answers off. However, I received a straight answer when I asked the Prime Minister
	"whether it is his practice personally to approve replies to written parliamentary answers in his name."—[ Official Report, 24 April 2006; Vol. 445, c. 922W.]
	The Prime Minister gave the very clear one-word answer "Yes." We must therefore assume that he does accept responsibility for parliamentary answers in his name.
	The Minister may be interested to know that I have produced a little dossier for him. I will hand him a copy at the end of the debate. It is entitled "Why won't the Prime Minister Answer the Question?" I hope that that is a question that the Minister, at least, will answer.
	The ministerial code, published in July 2007, states:
	"Holders of public office should be as open as possible about all the decisions and actions that they take. They should give reasons for their decisions and restrict information only when the wider public interest clearly demands."
	There is nothing wrong with that: it is a perfectly proper policy to set out and adhere to. Of course, if we do not like the way in which Ministers respond, we can complain to the person who enforces the ministerial code—but, unfortunately, that is the Prime Minister as well. I am not sure to whom one should complain if the Prime Minister is interpreting the ministerial code. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what the mechanism is for dealing with that particular difficult scenario.
	In May 2007, in a speech launching his bid to become leader of the Labour party, the Prime Minister said
	"government must be more open and accountable to Parliament".
	He was reacting against what were perceived to be some of the excesses of the previous regime under Tony Blair. The Minister may recall that that particular motif—that particular approach by the present Prime Minister—was well received, and contributed in no small measure to the popular support that he enjoyed during the early part of his time as Prime Minister. Unfortunately, it has not been carried through in terms of written parliamentary answers.
	I have conducted an analysis. The Minister may consider it a small analysis, but I have asked the Prime Minister 23 written parliamentary questions in the last 12 months.

Chris Bryant: I know!

Norman Baker: I am glad the Minister knows. I do not know whether that means that he is responsible for the answers, but I think it fair to say that only 17 per cent, of them—four out of 23—have been answered in any way satisfactorily, while 83 per cent, have not been answered properly at all. That is not good enough.
	I hope the Minister will not either attack me personally for doing that work or pretend that everything is all right, because it is not. The Minister has a good record in the House for being independent and fair-minded. I hope he will recognise that there is a problem, and that it is in his interests as well as those of Parliament to try to deal with it.
	How are these questions not answered properly? What techniques are used? Sometimes the Prime Minister will provide irrelevant information: he is asked one thing, but his reply bears no relation to the question he was asked. Sometimes he provides information that is so vague that it cannot be used in any shape or form. Sometimes he answers the bit of the question he likes, and leaves unanswered the bits that are more difficult to answer. These techniques may be well established—perhaps they are not unique to this Prime Minister and have been employed by other Prime Ministers, and also by other Ministers. I do not wish, therefore, to pretend that the this Prime Minister is a lot worse than any other, but these are not techniques to be proud of, and nor do they bear close scrutiny. I hope that he and the Deputy Leader of the House will recognise that it would be better if proper answers were given to parliamentary questions.

Julian Lewis: Before the hon. Gentleman moves on from his list of techniques, may I draw his attention to two others, which he may have partly covered in what he has said?
	One particularly disturbing technique is to refer the Member who has asked the question to some extremely obscure page of a website or to say that the material requested is available in some huge volume of Government statistics. That is of no help to anyone. However, in fairness to the Leader of the House, I should say that she has at least stamped on the practice of referring Members to previous answers without enclosing a copy of that answer, and that addition at least makes things more convenient for the hon. Member concerned.

Norman Baker: The hon. Gentleman makes some relevant points, and I am grateful to him for adding colour to the case I am making. It should be added, however, that although we may now have the previous answer enclosed, it sometimes bears no relation to the question.
	Let me give the Deputy Leader of the House a couple of examples. They are by no means the most important examples, but they are typical of the problem. I asked the Prime Minister on what date he last travelled by rail on official business. I do not think I have to justify my questions—I am entitled to ask questions if I wish to do so—but the reason I asked that question was that I speak for my party on transport matters. The Government have made a virtue of their climate change activities and have rightly introduced a Bill to tackle climate change, and I wished to discover whether Ministers were adhering to their statements in their personal behaviour. It was not an unreasonable inquiry, therefore, and, in fact, I asked every Minister that question. Of 22 Departments, including the Prime Minister's office, who were asked that question, 18 have given me a precise date on which the Minister last used a train—and most of them travelled by train quite recently, so this is a good news story for the Government as most of them at least are helping to stick to their climate change targets by trying to use the train wherever possible. I am therefore happy to put out something positive about the Government on this occasion, because that is what my questions produced. Two Ministers have not yet responded—they have given holdings answers—and two have refused to give the information. Who are they? They are the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
	What did the Prime Minister say? He could have given a simple, short answer by actually saying when he last travelled by train: "12 December 2007" or whenever it was. Instead, he said this:
	"I travel, making the most efficient and cost-effective arrangements, including by rail. My travel arrangements are in accordance with the arrangements for official travel set out in chapter 10 of the 'Ministerial Code', and the accompanying guidance document, 'Travel by Ministers'."—[ Official Report, 31 March 2008; Vol. 474, c. 550W.]
	Why did he not answer the question?
	I raised another issue in the light of activities before the parliamentary recess in July. Unfortunately, by releasing a huge number of statements on the last day before the recess—as, sadly, has become traditional—the Prime Minister was breaking the ministerial code, as it explicitly states that a large number of statements should not be released on the last day before the recess. I can give the Deputy Leader of the House chapter and verse for that if he wishes.

Chris Bryant: There were half the number of last time.

Norman Baker: From memory, I think there were about 30, but certainly a huge number of written ministerial statements were issued in July on the last day before the House broke up. I therefore asked the Prime Minister
	"what steps he took to ensure that his release of written ministerial statements on 22 July 2008 did not constitute a breach of section 9.3 of the Ministerial Code; and if he will make a statement on the application of the code to written ministerial statements issued on that date."
	What did the Prime Minister say in reply? He said:
	"The information was published when it was ready."—[ Official Report, 10 September 2008; Vol. 479, c. 1806W.]
	Are we being asked to believe that by happy coincidence all these statements came to fruition on this one particular date? Had they been ready a day later, presumably we would not have had them, but it seems that, happily and coincidentally, they were all ready on the last parliamentary day before the summer recess. I do not think that is the case. I have asked the Prime Minister subsequent questions to pursue that, but I have received no satisfactory answers.
	We must also consider the matter to which I referred tangentially in response to the intervention by the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis): the practice of being referred to a previous answer. When we receive answers of that type, we think that when we take a stroll back through  Hansard the information that we want will be there—unfortunately, we find that it is not there.
	I asked the Prime Minister
	"on what date he last met Tony Blair."—[ Official Report, 13 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 232W.]
	I do not have to justify the questions that I ask in this House, but as the Deputy Leader of the House may wish to know why I asked that perfectly legitimate question, let me say that I did so because Tony Blair apparently plays a leading role in sorting out the middle east but seemed rather invisible in that role. In order to understand how this country and this Government were approaching the middle east crisis, it was important to know what relationship there was between the Prime Minister and his predecessor. It has not always been a very good relationship, by all accounts, so I wanted to elucidate whether that relationship was affecting British relations and policy in the middle east.
	I was referred back to a previous question of mine and, therefore, to the previous answer. I shall not bother reading out the previous question, but the previous answer was as follows:
	"Information on official and charity receptions held at Downing street will be published in the usual way following the end of the financial year."—[ Official Report, 15 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 819W.]
	I did not ask about official and charity receptions; I asked the Prime Minister when he last met Tony Blair, so why will the Prime Minister not answer the question?
	When an hon. Member presses the Prime Minister, they receive the final formula, which tries to shut down the exchange—"I have nothing further to add." I asked the Prime Minister
	"if he will make it his policy to ensure that there is a parliamentary debate before any decision is taken on whether to allow the US Administration to use Diego Garcia in any planned strikes against Iran."
	I hope that hon. Members accept that that was a legitimate train of inquiry. The Prime Minister could have said that the Government had no plans to allow the US to use Diego Garcia, or he could have said that there would be a parliamentary debate or that there would not be a parliamentary debate. All those would have been legitimate answers.
	What did the Prime Minister say? He said:
	"We are fully committed to a negotiated solution and are working to ensure that this difficult issue will be resolved through diplomacy. The Government always ensure that any use of their bases is in accordance with international law."—[ Official Report, 19 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 577W.]
	I am very pleased about that. That is a reasonable statement of the Government's policy, but it does not answer the question that I asked. I therefore asked him
	"for what reasons he did not state whether he would ensure a Parliamentary debate before any decision is taken on the use of Diego Garcia by the US Administration.
	He replied:
	"I have nothing further to add"—[ Official Report, 29 November 2007; Vol. 468, c. 591W.]
	That was a second opportunity to answer the question, but he refused to take it.
	There are lots of other examples that I could cite, but I will not trouble the patience of the Deputy Leader of the House by reading out every question to which an inadequate answer has been given. Reading those out would take a great deal of time. I am sorry to say that reading out the adequate answers could be done rather more quickly, although I am not going to do that either. Perhaps he ought to think about the consequences of poor answering practices for when he is in opposition, as his party will be at some point, whether after the next election or at some other future point. He may be happy to establish a rule whereby proper parliamentary questions are not given proper parliamentary answers, but that will set a rather dangerous precedent for him for when he is in opposition. He may find out at that point that being smart in government is not so smart when he faces that tactic in opposition, so it is in his interests to reform this practice.
	It is not clever or smart to refuse parliamentarians proper answers to legitimate questions asked in this House. Mr. Speaker has regularly made it clear that he expects proper answers to be given. I know that he has no control over the content of answers, but he has indicated the proper role of Members of Parliament in asking questions; indeed, he has facilitated this debate.
	I hope that the Minister accepts that we have a right to ask questions, and to have them answered, even if the answers are embarrassing to the Government or cause them political difficulties. That is not the judgment that should be made, but it is made, not in all Departments but in No. 10. The judgment that should be made is whether the information requested can be released without compromising our security, causing problems with commercial confidentiality, incurring disproportionate cost or causing problems with allies. Those are legitimate reasons for not answering questions, and they should form the test. Unfortunately, the test is increasingly whether a question will cause political embarrassment, which is a misuse of power. I hope that the Minister will do his best to recognise that the issue is serious. If he does not want to admit that today, I hope that he will consider it and try to ensure that answers to parliamentary questions are rather better than they have been recently.

Chris Bryant: I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) on securing this debate and on the assiduity with which he asks questions.
	I wholeheartedly agree that openness is good, and not just for the Opposition. I come to this debate not worrying about whether we shall be in opposition, but as someone who believes that openness is good for government. The same principles apply whether one is on the Opposition Benches or is a Government Back Bencher. I believe that our Parliament has more robust means for ensuring that than almost any other legislature that I know. We have oral questions, which are unpredictable, particularly with the innovation of topical questions, and that has applied to the Prime Minister ever since we have had Prime Minister's questions, which have been open and effectively topical questions. Our system is not followed in many other countries in Europe or other common law countries, where there is a much inferior system of parliamentary questions. I have sometimes been galled to see other parliamentary systems where speeches in debates do not have to be delivered for them to appear in the written record. Speakers may send them in by e-mail if they were not called, and there is no means of intervening to ask the thrusting question that might make a dramatic difference to the debate.
	We have a strict system of written questions, both ordinary and named day written questions. Although we do not manage to answer every named day written question on the right day, every Department does so with the vast majority of those questions, and the vast majority of ordinary written questions are answered within a week. That is so different from most other legislatures in the world that we should be proud of it. We also have a strict regime for correspondence from the public to Ministers, and from Members of this House and of the other place.
	We have a robust system but, as the hon. Gentleman says, we must ensure that it works. That is why the Cabinet Office ensures that the ministerial code, to which he referred, is clear. It states that
	"it is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the Prime Minister."
	It continues:
	"Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament and the public, refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest which should be decided in accordance with the relevant statutes and the Freedom of Information Act 2000".
	That is precisely the sort of issue that the hon. Gentleman mentioned at the end of his speech, and I think we wholeheartedly agree thus far. In addition, the House has always believed that it is contempt of the privilege of Parliament not to be honest in dealings with the House.
	The hon. Gentleman said that he has asked 23 parliamentary questions—I am not sure whether they were named day or ordinary written questions—in the past year to the Prime Minister, and I know that he has asked questions elsewhere. One of his complaints—he did not make it in this way, but this is how I would have made it—is that sometimes the Prime Minister's answers have been a little abrupt. On one occasion, the hon. Gentleman received a simple "Yes" in answer, and on another, the answer was more succinct than he might have liked—although, on my reading, it did answer the precise question that he had asked.
	The hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) also referred to the practice—adopted not only by the Prime Minister, but by other Ministers—of referring Members to previous answers. The Leader of the House has made it clear that we do not think that that is an appropriate way to answer a question. It may be acceptable if the reply would have to be excessively lengthy, because the previous answer had been lengthy; if the previous answer had been recent, and so was readily available; and if a copy of the original answer was provided to the hon. Member asking the question. However, by far the best practice is to provide the full answer again, even if that means saying, "As I said in my answer on such and such a date", and then repeating that answer. That is what we are striving to achieve in every Department and I do not see why we should make any distinctions.
	The hon. Gentleman says that many questions are not answered satisfactorily. He said that he had asked the Prime Minister specifically about when he had met Tony Blair, but the question that the hon. Gentleman asked on 15 October 2007 was:
	"To ask the Prime Minister (1) which  (a) hon. Members,  (b) former hon. Members and  (c) Peers who are not members of the Labour Party he has invited to Downing Street since becoming Prime Minister...(2) if he will publish a list of all those he has invited to Downing Street since becoming Prime Minister."
	To which question the Prime Minister replied:
	"Information on official and charity receptions held at Downing street will be published in the usual way following the end of the financial year."—[ Official Report, 15 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 819W.]
	That is a legitimate answer, because that information is published on a regular basis and it makes sense to have it all in one regular publication, rather than to respond to individual requests.

Norman Baker: I should have said in my remarks that I welcome topical questions as a good innovation. I do not have a problem with the publication once a year of information on "official and charity receptions". However, the question on Tony Blair was subsequent to that and referred back to that answer. I have had no guarantee that we will learn whether the Prime Minister has met members of the Labour party in Downing street or not. That question has not been answered yet.

Chris Bryant: The point is that the list will be made available annually, and there is an issue about announcing whether someone is or is not a member of a political party. I do not think that everyone who goes through the door of No. 10 has to provide their membership card or, indeed, prove that they are not members of a political party. I remember that a few years ago, during the Labour party leadership ballot that Tony Blair eventually won, someone rang us from Cardinal Archbishop Basil Hume's office to ask whether he could vote in both the membership section and the trade union section. I said that I did not know that he was a member of either, but in any case he was allowed to vote in both sections. We do not always know who is a member of the Labour party, because they can be hidden round corners—

Julian Lewis: But God is on our side!

Chris Bryant: Well, I would hesitate before handing out a membership card to one of the holy trinity.
	The hon. Member for Lewes also mentioned the question about train travel. I am glad that the vast majority of Ministers have been able to reply directly. It has been a standing view of all Prime Ministers that they never comment, in advance or retrospectively, on any travel arrangements. One often sees the Prime Minister getting on a train on television, but the security advice is that he should not comment on his travel arrangements.
	I want briefly to put the matter of parliamentary questions in context. Although I wholeheartedly welcome the fact that we have a very robust, vigorous and active system of asking parliamentary questions, I merely point out that in the years shortly after I was born, in 1964 and 1965, only 46 parliamentary questions a day were asked while in the previous Session 445 questions a day were asked. That completely changes the system.
	One thing that has made it much easier for Members of Parliament—and sometimes also, I suspect, for MPs' members of staff, although perhaps I am being unfair—to table questions is the facility online that asks whether they want to ask the same question to another Minister. They just have to click "Yes" and another Minister is asked the same question. I know that there are round robin questions, because they end up being asked of the Leader of the House's office where they are wholly inappropriate. A number of times I have had to answer a question with the words "None," "Not at all," and "Never" because the round robin question has been rather more enthusiastically "robinned" round than is appropriate.
	I do not want to restrict the number of written parliamentary questions, but I am cautious because a time might come when we could weigh down Ministers; they end up signing off the answers. I know from my experience that I signed an answer off and it turned out that the information that I had been provided with by the House authorities was completely inaccurate by a factor of nearly 100. I had to submit a changed answer a couple of weeks later. Sometimes the system is held up by Ministers because they have a job to do, and 445 written parliamentary questions is a lot. Last year, for the sake of completeness, there were 73,357 written parliamentary questions.

Norman Baker: I produce all my own questions and table them myself at the Table Office—I do not e-table. I agree with the Deputy Leader of the House to the extent that I feel that the system is being undermined by the capacity of research assistants to table questions that the Member for whom they work has not even seen. I worry about that. If the Deputy Leader of the House wanted to clamp down on that aspect of things, I would not object.

Chris Bryant: Indeed. I do not want to clamp down too heavily on that, but it is an abuse of the systems of the House. Any question that is tabled in the name of an hon. Member should have been tabled by an hon. Member. The e-tabling system is there to facilitate hon. Members, not to enable their staff to do their job for them. That is an important principle.
	The Procedure Committee has been carrying out an inquiry and will eventually report on the whole question of written parliamentary questions. I am keen to try to ensure that wherever possible we abide as strictly as all hon. Members would want with the ministerial code and with the spirit and letter of the rules of this House. Sometimes we fall short, either because Ministers have been away, which has meant that an answer has not been provided as swiftly as it might have been, or because they have glanced rather cursorily at the answer and it has not been as full as it might or indeed should have been. The requirement is that an answer should be truthful, and that does not mean just a partial truth. It means the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
	The hon. Gentleman raised two other points on which I want to comment. The first was the issue of written ministerial statements and the fact that there were a large number in July. He referred to the point that I made from a sedentary position, which was that there were many fewer. I was actually referring to the Christmas recess, when there were many fewer because I specifically wrote to Ministers to try to ensure that we did not have a large number of written ministerial statements on the last day.
	There is always a double bind for Ministers. If they do not produce something by the recess, no statement is made to the House at all until the end of the recess. That is a large gap. At the same time, to provide a written ministerial statement at the last minute—particularly if it is of hefty substance—means that Members do not have an opportunity to have a come-back. One thing that we have done that I think is right is to make it possible for Members to table questions during recesses, and especially over the summer months. We have also put in place a system for the answering of named day questions during the recess as well—something that was sadly lacking for many years.
	Incidentally, I can tell the House that I had been hoping to get the 4.45 pm train from London to Cardiff this afternoon. The one at 4.15 pm would have been better, as that costs the taxpayer only £166 as opposed to £266.

Norman Baker: What class of ticket is that?

Chris Bryant: It is first class, as the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether freedom of information inquiries and ministerial answers are connected. I am gazing wistfully towards my private office staff for the answer to that, and am afraid that I shall have to write to him with the answer, although I note that the ministerial code refers specifically to the Freedom of Information Act.
	I turn now to the disproportionate costs threshold, which currently stands at £750. There is pretty clear guidance from the Cabinet Office on this matter and it makes it clear that, where information is refused on the grounds of disproportionate cost, there should be a presumption that any requested information that is readily available should be provided. Therefore, although it may be impossible to provide a full answer without incurring disproportionate costs, any elements of the question that can be answered should be answered.
	The disproportionate cost threshold is calculated to be eight times the average marginal cost of answering written parliamentary questions. The marginal cost is the direct cost of the time spent by civil servants preparing the answer for a written parliamentary question or producing the necessary facts and figures. It excludes the standing costs of parliamentary branches and Ministers' offices and the fixed cost of staff accommodation. I hope that the hon. Member for Lewes is fully enlightened by that paragraph, because I am not sure that I am.
	I have just been handed a response to the question about the connection between freedom of information legislation and ministerial answers. However, I am unwilling to risk reading out something that I do not fully understand twice in one speech, so I shall confine myself to replying to the hon. Member for Lewes by mail. If he is not satisfied with my answer, I have no doubt that he will table a written parliamentary question.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.